


Survivors Guilt

by Ramen_and_Manuscripts



Category: Five Nights at Freddy's
Genre: I call the crying child Joey like the tape lore, I will put a trigger warning on the one chapter that has a lot of violence because will is a psycho, I won't tag much because too many tags turns me off from reading fics, M/M, Micheal is mike, This is very Micheal-centric, and the lore is innaccurate. If anyone tries to call me out i will cry because I already know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:09:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 19,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26532649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ramen_and_Manuscripts/pseuds/Ramen_and_Manuscripts
Summary: In which literally everyone Micheal comes across in his life tells him to stop, until it's too late.......Micheal shouldn't be alive. No, really. He's the only one remaining in his immediate family who hasn't died in a horrid way--so he supposes it's just a matter of time. With the little time he has left, he seeks to amend for his and his father's sins, and avenge the deaths of the children left in their wake.And Jeremy's there too......
Relationships: Jeremy Fitzgerald/Mike Schmidt, Michael Afton/Jeremy Fitzgerald
Comments: 67
Kudos: 150





	1. Chapter 1: The Interview

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written for this fandom before, please go easy on me :) I wasn't even planning on posting it but the fact that I wrote sooo much actually leaves room for a real update schedule and that's exciting.
> 
> If you like it leave a comment and a kudos to make my day :))

Micheal feels like he’s in a daze, shaken with pre-interview jitters and wearing a blazer jacket that makes him sweat. He doesn’t just want this job, he _needs_ this job. At least, he thinks he does. 

He’s aimless, a wanderer with roughly 250 pounds of guilt weighing on his chest and perpetual shadows under his eyes. All he has left is his father and his dreadful legacy; and an urge to bring it all to light. He has to do _something,_ even if that something is only small acts of justice or apology that lift the sandbags off of his chest one by one. 

His sweaty hand grips the stainless steel handle as he pulls the glass door open. As promised, a bored looking manager is snacking on a piece of flat-looking pizza in a brightly colored booth while staring soullessly at the animatronic show immediately across from her. He forces himself to follow her gaze. 

_They’re just robots, Mike._

Sometimes he thinks in his father’s voice. He tries not to think about that too hard. 

After a few seconds, he tears his eyes away from the purple rabbit singing jazz and focuses on the task at hand. He approaches the table confidently, sticking out his hand when the woman turns her dull gaze to him.

She takes it, raising her eyebrows.

  
  
“Hi, I’m Mike? Mike Schmidt. I’m here for the interview.”

  
  
She nods, releasing him to regard her clipboard. Her voice is as flat and grey as the rest of her. “You’re applying for the night guard position?”

She sounds somewhat surprised, as if she didn’t read the paper before her until now. 

“Yes. I am. Yes.” Micheal inhales, cutting himself off before he rambles. 

“Interesting.” She mutters. “How old are you, son?”

  
  
“22.”

  
  
“Hmm.” Her eyes grow hard, “I strongly advise you to reconsider.” 

“What? Did I not meet the requirements? Aren’t you going to- like- interview me?”

  
“Hold on.” She smiles slightly, the blankness in her features betraying it’s sincerity, “I didn’t say you didn’t have the job. You do. But I would like to make sure you’ve considered the risks.” 

  
“I already _have_ the job?”

  
“Of course you do. Who else would be stupid enough to take it?” She coughs. “Not that you’re- Well. Just- take into consideration that the last seven night guards have either quit or disappeared within the week.”  
  
“What?” Micheal should have known that this wasn’t going to be normal. Answers don’t come easy, especially with his dad.  
  
He was always so...cryptic. Like an enigma. He’d go to his friends houses and see their father’s joke around, and laugh, and be affectionate with their kids. His dad only ever made him cry.

That isn’t entirely fair. He also made Micheal smart, made him think before he spoke in fear of being called dense or stupid. He made him find new and inventive ways to sneak out of the house, until he installed cameras pointing at his bed. He helped him learn by example how to have multiple personalities for different people, easy to wear like masks. The personality he had with Michael was dismissive, with his mother commandeering but faithful, with his younger siblings the loving father that Micheal could never dream of. With everyone else? Jovial and friendly, a Santa Claus-esqe presence. He imagines that there’s more, but he didn’t encounter them before he left. 

“I wouldn’t blame you if you looked for work somewhere else.” The woman intones her voice very strongly, warning him against this.

But how bad can it really be, huh? This may be the only way to get closer to the truth of what happened leading up to his father’s disappearance. He knows some things, like how he’s probably was behind the disappearances of the children in his restaurant, and Charlie Emily’s murder. He looked through all of his father’s old plans and writings, but there was nothing there. For a long time, Micheal had tried to stay away from coming back here, but his dry quest for knowledge always ended up at these doors, and he’d decided to bite the bullet. If he doesn’t _try_ then he might just waste away forever, unable to move on from the pain in his past.

  
“I’m happy to give it a try.”

  
  
The woman looks mad, upset, and then indifferent all in an exhale. “Suit yourself.”

  
  
She slides the clipboard over to him, handing him a pen. “Enjoy signing your life away, Mikey.”

  
  
He grins at her, shrugging. “Oh, I will.”


	2. Chapter 2: Home is where your house is

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting multiple chapters right now to maybe generate some interest?
> 
> Sometimes I know I have to do that so I'm trying my best. 
> 
> Comment and kudos if you like it so far!

Micheal has already shed the blazer by the time he opens the front door of his apartment, where it assumes its usual position; slung over his shoulder like an empty potato sack. He calls into the darkish space to signify his arrival home. He receives no answer so he assumes his partner is still at work, as he usually is at this point. Micheal chucks the jacket across the room and it hits the wall hard and crumples to the ground. He’ll pick it up later.

Now that the initial anxiety of getting the job is gone, he feels infinitely better in his skin... like he’s one step closer to where he’s been destined to be for his whole life. 

Where or what that is? Well.. he doesn’t know. 

But in part it’s this- emptiness inside him that he’s seeking to fill that pushes him back to his Dad.

Don’t get him wrong. His dad is/was the epitome of human shit, but it’s the only thing he has left. 

Just as he sits down on the couch the door opens again behind him. It’s Jacob. He doesn’t realize that Micheal is there, he can tell, because all he does is sigh heavily and flick the light switch that Micheal had neglected. He’s dressed even more formally than Micheal was, which is customary for his line of work. Business, law, something or other. Mike always zones out when he talks about his work, anyway. 

He watches mildly as Jacob meanders into the kitchen; and when he gets out of sight Micheal fills in the gaps. He assumes from the coinciding thumps that he sets his briefcase on the kitchen table, and that he slams his palm down next to it shortly after. He must be upset for some reason. He hears him hook his ankle around the chair leg and pull it out with an annoying shriek. 

He sighs again.

And then he assumes that he catches a glimpse of Micheal’s abused jacket and connects the dots, because he hesitantly calls out- “Mike?” 

“Hey.”

  
  
“What the hell?” He mutters, standing up to peer over the couch. “You saw me come in, didn’t you?”

  
  
“I was taking a nap.” Micheal lies easily, feigning a sleepy smile.

“Oh.” He shakes his head, leaning to cup Micheals cheek. “Don’t scare me like that.”

“I’m sorry, Honey.” Micheal places his hand on top of Jacob’s. “Come here.” 

Jacob circles the couch, and kneels to be face to face with Micheal,”How did the interview go?”

  
  
Micheal grabs Jacob’s tie, purple and gold, looking at it instead of him. “I got the job.”

  
  
“Wow! Really?” He beams, his dark features lighting up for Michael's accomplishment. Micheal feels a pang of horrid guilt in his chest, which he stifles by tugging on Jacob’s tie, bringing their mouths together. 

Jacob enthusiastically returns the kiss, another way of telling Micheal that he’s proud of him. God. Mike does  _ not _ deserve a man like him.

Jacob tries to pull back a few times but Micheal chases his mouth and pulls him back every time. Eventually he escapes, laughing slightly. “I’m so proud of you.”

  
  
“Thank you.” Micheal grins half-heartedly, “I start next week…”

  
  
It’s a night shift. He’ll barely see Jacob at all anymore, except for on the weekends when they both have days off. Hopefully that won’t make Jacob get bored enough to break up with him.

  
Or maybe hopefully it will. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen, and getting bored seems like the least horrible on the spectrum of extremes that would lead to a break up. Even though he doesn’t love Jacob, he loves having someone to go home to that he really likes as a person. It’s not Jacob’s fault that Micheal never fell in love with him. He’s romantic, caring, understanding- an all around great guy.But Micheal knows that he’s too soft, that if he showed him the inner workings of his mind and the deepest depths of his past that Jacob would never see him the same. He’d be a monster to him, politely asked to leave immediately and sent off with some ice cream and a hug goodbye. No, it’s not Jacob’s fault. Micheal will never be fit to be  _ anyone’s  _ partner, unless they're just as messed up as him. 

He realizes too late that Jacob’s looking at him expectedly, and that he had said something. “Sorry, what?”

  
  
“Are you okay?” He seemingly repeats and Micheal nods. 

  
  
“You really don’t seem like you are.”

  
  
“I’m nervous.” Micheal admits, scooching into a sitting position so Jacob can share the couch with him. When he says it, he realizes that he actually is. Even though his anxiety about wasting his life has lessened slightly, the reality of spending the night in a place so similar to where his siblings had died is tortuous. He has to remind himself that he’s doing this all in part for them, for justice. He knows his father loved his siblings more than any living things in the world, but it was still partly due to  _ his  _ actions that they died. 

Even if Micheal will never shake his poor brother’s soul off of his back.

“I imagine it won’t be that strenuous, right? Except for the hours.” Jacob pulls Micheal into his side, “That will definitely take some adjustment.”

  
  
“Ah.” He shrugs, “You know. New things are kind of scary.”

“Yeah.” The silence stretches thin. Micheal scrambles for a topic.

“Umm...how was your day?”

  
  
Jacob brightens and starts talking. Micheal zones out 3 sentences in. 


	3. Chapter 3: Night 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey!! To those who have read so far, thank you so much! 
> 
> I hope you continue to read and hopefully you like it haha.

It’s Micheal’s first night. With a sleepy kiss and a piece of good luck cake in his stomach, he climbs into his trashy car at 11:30. Stalling before starting the engine, he resists the urge to let out a scream. 

“This is for them, Micheal Afton.” He mutters to himself. “For the ones you couldn’t save.”   
  


_ You didn’t save any of them _ , his father reminds him as he starts the car and backs out of the driveway.  He only made his brother’s life a living hell before he surely went to heaven. 

  
Micheal imagines how he must have felt, sometimes. It was only a few months after his sister’s ‘death by robot’ and Joey was crying everyday at the littlest things, like stepping on a bug or getting surprised by Mike’s cruel pranks. Mike was so _mad_ that his parents didn’t love him that he took it out on Joey, and Elizabeth dying really  _ broke _ something in his head. He loved his brother, most of the time. His light teasing had evolved into something more vicious over time and he could say that he didn’t notice, but he’d be lying. He really ripped into him, anticipating his tears. It was a habit, reinforced by his father’s praise whenever he did something to scare his little brother away from the animatronics.

He imagines the betrayal that Joey must have felt when it was his own brother lifting him to one of his worst fears, putting him in real danger. The immense pressure behind his eyes before his skull cracked under blunt teeth. His last waking thoughts.

Micheal doesn’t even remember what was going through his  _ own  _ head at that point.

He drives without music. He rarely drives with music. It distracts him. It also feels irreverent. 

He didn’t move so close to Freddy’s on purpose. This is just where Jacob lives, about 15 minutes away. He finds it awfully convenient now.  He pulls into the parking lot and the restaurant lights are still all on; illuminating the emptiness that’s left there when all the children have gone home. He focuses on his steps one by one, right foot left foot, all the way to the door. Otherwise he might have run the other way. 

When he pushes the translucent door open the chime rings. A girl who is mopping the floor startles and looks up at him, and then relaxes at the sight of his uniform(he'd gotten it at orientation. He looks good in it). “You’re the new guy? What time is it?”   
  
Mike glances at his wrist watch. “Uh, 11:56?”

She flushes and jumps into action, shoving the mop in the pail and hightailing it into a closet and back out. She pauses on her way past him to put her hand on his shoulder.    
  
“Peace out, mister. Good luck. “   
  
“Wait-”   
  
She laughs uncomfortably, walking backwards now so she can still face him. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

She pushes the door open with her back, smiling apologetically before flipping a master switch and plunging him into darkness. He barely sees her shadow jog to her car. Micheal wonders what’s gotten her so freaked. His head immediately snaps towards pirates cove (he still remembers the layout, somehow), but he forces that thought down. He regards his paper. He'd gotten to look at his office the day before when it was still light out, it is small and sequestered away at the end of two long hallways. He follows the small map in the corner of his instructions, because the building feels different in the dark; he whips out the flashlight latched onto his belt to see where the moon doesn't touch.

He finds it. It looks even smaller with the oppressing darkness surrounding it. The gaping doors look like huge and hungry mouths on either side of him, and they awaken a feeling of dread deep in his stomach, one he hasn't felt since he saw his dad last.

He decides to take that as a good sign.

He'd just sunk into the swivel chair when the phone rings. It feels way too loud in the silence so Mike scrambles to pick it up, to delay the awakening of anything that might be sleeping.

He holds the red phone to his ear, whispering a hoarse- "Hello?"

A jovial voice interrupts him, nearly overrun with static. “Hello? Hello, hello!”

“Um.”

  
“Uh, I wanted to record a message for you, to help you get settled in on your first night.”   


  
“Oh.” This is a pre-recorded thing. Must be a customary listen for new hires. Mike relaxes. He’s not one for phone conversations, or real conversations, or human contact… though someone on the other side of the line would probably be comforting right now. He wedges the phone between his ear and his shoulder to inspect the tablet that controls the cameras. The phone guy rambles on.

“Um, I actually worked in that office before you. I’m...finishing up my last week now as a matter of fact so...I know it can be a little overwhelming, but i’m here to tell you: there’s nothing to worry about, uhh, you’ll do fine! So...let’s just focus on getting you through your first week. Ok? Uh...let’s see. First there’s an introductory greeting from the company I'm supposed to read. Eeh it’s kind of a legal thing, you know. ‘Welcome to Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza: a magical place for kids and grown-ups alike, where fantasy and fun come to life. Fazbear entertainment is not responsible for damage to property or person. Upon the discovery of the damage or death has occurred, a missing person’s report will be filed within ninety days or as soon as property and premise have been thoroughly cleaned and bleached and the carpets have been replaced. Blah, blah, blah.”

Mike does a double take, putting down the tablet. He knows that people have been disappearing, but dying? He probably should have known. The lady’s half hearted attempts to stop him should have been enough to alert him. Since when did management try to stop people from filling their positions?

The phone guy is quick to amend. “ Now that might  _ sound _ bad, I know, but there’s really nothing to worry about! Uhh, the animatronic characters here do get a bit quirky at night, but do I blame them? No! If I were forced to sing...those same stupid songs for twenty years and I never got a bath? I’d probably be a bit irritable at night too. So remember: these characters hold a special place in the hearts of children and you need to show them a little respect. Right? Ok.”   


  
Mike knows that animatronics are dangerous, he’s seen it first hand. But the ones that had killed his siblings were just malfunctioning. They’d been situational things, tragedies. Animatronics can’t kill you unless you get too close. Right?

“So just be aware: the characters do tend to wander a bit. Uhh, they’re left with some kind of ‘free-roaming mode’ at night. Uhhh...something about their servos locking up if they get turned off for too long? Uhh...they used to wander during the day too, but then there was the bite of '87. Yeah... it’s amazing that the human body can live without the frontal lobe, ya know?”

  
  
“Oh my fucking god.” They come to  _ you _ ? Goddamn! 

Mike opens the cameras again, just to check that the animatronics are still on their stage. They are. This has to be a joke. This has to be a joke. 

“Now concerning your safety: the only real risk to you as the night watchmen here, if any, is the fact that these characters...uhh, if they happen to see you after hours probably won’t recognize you as a person. They'll p-most likely see you as a metal endoskeleton without it's costume on. Now since that's against the rules here at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, they'll probably try to...forcefully stuff you inside a Freddy Fazbear suit.”   
  


Not a joke. Mike almost whimpers, biting his lip. “Dad, you fucking maniac.”

This had to be, in some part,  _ his _ fault. They realistically shouldn’t be able to leave their stage at all. They should be bolted down. They should have predestined movements, programmed to dance and sing with prerecorded music. Machines. Robots. 

_ They aren't AIs _ .

“Um, Now that wouldn't be so bad if the suits themselves weren't filled with crossbeams, wires and animatronic devices especially around the facial area. So, you could imagine having your head forcefully pressed inside one of those could cause a bit of discomfort... and death. Uh, the only parts of you that would likely see the light of day again would be your eyeballs and teeth when the pop out the front of the mask, heh. Y-yeah they don't tell you these things when you sign up. But hey, first day should be a breeze. I'll chat with you tomorrow. Uh, check those cameras, remember to close the doors only if absolutely necessary. Gotta conserve power. Alright, goodnight.”

  
  
Mike whispers goodnight back, even though the person on the other side of the phone might never hear him. 

Mike is going to die here, if he doesn’t find the answers he needs quickly. Otherwise, he might as well. 

He puts down the phone, picking up the tablet again with shaking hands. “God.” He flicks through the cameras, and nothing seems to be happening out of the ordinary. Mike doesn’t dare to hope. He sees the battery in the lower corner of the screen going down steadily. He turns off the screen, and it goes black. 

He can only hear the occelating of the fan and his own ragged breaths. He unplugs the fan in the hope that it would save some power. It’s nearly two. His shift ends at six. 

He checks the cameras again and jumps when he realizes that Bonnie isn’t on the stage anymore. Desperately, he searches through each camera view to find where he’s gone. He sighs when he sees that he’s only gone as far as the dining room. 

“Fuck.” He mutters under his breath. “So they do move.” 

He turns off the tablet again. He doesn’t want to die tonight, and he has a feeling that he will if he loses power. He reasons that he would hear the footsteps outside of his door if they got too close. While he waits, he rustles through the filing cabinets at his feet, checking the camera every few seconds. Chica joins Bonnie in the dining room. 

He pulls out a stack of newspapers and slams it down on the desk, opening the camera again. Bonnie is gone from the dining room, he finds him walking down the hallway. Mike squeaks, and he pokes his head out of the door on his left slowly. Sure enough, there’s a silhouette of a 7 foot tall rabbit there, 12 feet away. It jerks to a reluctant halt and unblinkingly returns Michael’s gaze. He pulls his head back into the door in a panic.   
  
“Fuck, shit, fuck.” When should he close the doors? Why do the doors use power? Why can’t they just be normal doors?   
  
Mike decides to wait. If the thing came sprinting towards him, he’d surely hear it in time. He stuffs the newspapers in the canvas bag he had brought. 

Chica is gone from the dining room, and from the sounds of cookware clashing together she’s in the kitchen. He glances out of the door to see Bonnie still standing there, motionless. Freddy is still on his stage. The cove’s curtains are drawn. 

He checks the clock. 4. 

He doesn’t dare occupy his mind with anything else, sitting tensely in his chair, checking the cameras periodically. 

"Chica you fucker, where are you?"

On instinct, Mike checks the lights on both sides, only to see Chica grinning at him through the window.

Mike freezes for a second- "Shit!"- before slamming the door closed.

"Leave- fucking- just-" Mike flips through the camera feeds until he finds her again back in the dining room. He punches the door button. 

"Goddamn." Mike drags his fingernails down his face, surely leaving angry red marks there, but the pain helps ground him.

"It’s okay... I just need to get through this." Mike pats the newspapers at his feet reassuringly, as if someone other than himself needed to be comforted. 

The rest of his shift is spent tensely, swiveling back and forth with restless energy and sharp eyes. No one really bothers him, and 6 hits uneventfully. Micheal stands up, staring at the clock.

  
  
“What now?”    


  
How could he possibly leave? Those robots will kill him. 

He peers out of the left door and Bonnie’s still standing there, motionless. Mike grabs the canvas bag, slinging it over his shoulder. This passageway would lead him out closer to the front doors than the other one, and he doesn’t know where Chica is and god this is terrifying maybe he should just stay here until it gets light outside.    
  
Mike, with one foot outside of the door, waits for Bonnie to lunge. 

Instead, he tilts his head slightly, making eye contact, and then turns on his heel and starts walking away.

“Good. Awesome.”

  
He slips past the rabbit once they make it out of the hallway and sprints for the glass door, and slams it shut behind him. He can see all 3 animatronics staring at him, but he doesn’t care.

He can finally breathe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave a comment and kudos and i'll love you forever :)


	4. Chapter 4: Friends in strange places

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: Language, the ittiest bittiest mention of suicide (it was something the news came up with to explain Mikes disappearance)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo!
> 
> I think I'm going to upload on Monday's from now on, so I have a concrete upload schedule? Idk
> 
> SO HERE COMES JEREMY BEST BOY. 
> 
> Also thank you to those who have read so far, all of the love in the world goes to you.

The second night was (somehow) easy, they barely moved. Mike let himself roam the office a bit, but there wasn’t much to see except for oodles of old name tags lined up neatly on a shelf (creepy, given the context), and old pop cups chucked into a corner. Yesterday while Jacob was at work he had poured over the newspapers. Micheal is unsure as to who had started collecting them, because they seem….specific.

Some of them were simply containing Freddy ads that spanned a whole spread, and honestly they _were_ pretty impressive.

Others were more of the strain Micheal was banking on. Missing children, last seen here. 

Interviews with William Afton or Henry Emily.

"These horrible tragedies will not be forgotten."- Dad

"I can't imagine losing my little girl to somewhere I trusted. We will be taking every precaution to keep your children safe" -Henry. (The other co-owner of the chain)

Charlie Emily's death, her broken body found in the dumpster behind a location.

Henry's breakdown, documented. William Afton sadly looking on, until ownership got handed over to him 'in pursuit of what we stood for before the tragedy'. Henry's disappearance.

Announcement for Circus World.

Liz's death.

Breaking story about a restaurant who killed someone the first day it was open. Interview with William Afton, in which he was noticeably distraught. 

Joseph Afton dies from internal bleeding after 7 day coma.

William Afton disappears, leaving behind recently motherless Micheal Afton.

The chain gets repossessed.

Micheal Afton commits suicide.

Hey look at this neat ad!

It’s all stuff Mike already knew. The stories themselves were little columns, hidden away. Sometimes they were in 3rd party newspapers, sometimes directly contradicted days later. (Gas leak? Ha.) It's a wonder this place is still open, and despite the new management models being supposedly safer in different locations, the animatronics here are the original ones.

The third day is proving to be a bit more of a problem. Mike sips flat pop through a crazy straw, flicking through camera views. The phone guy's voice crackles through the answering machine, and to Mike that's still a mystery. Someone must be _calling him_ and playing the message over because it feels more like an echo than a conversation.

"Things start getting real tonight."

Bonnie's in the supply closet already. Fuck him.

"Uh...hey, listen. I've got an idea. If you happen to get caught and don't want to be shoved inside a Freddy suit, uh, try playing dead! You know, go limp!"

"Oh. _Great_ idea." Mike shuts the door in Bonnie's face, waiting exactly 11 seconds before opening it back up to an empty hallway. It's almost like they teleport to and from places just to mess with Mike's mind.

"Then there's a chance they might think you're an empty costume instead….then again if they think you're an empty costume they might try to shove a metal endoskeleton inside you. I wonder how that would work."

Chica rattles some pots in the kitchen. Mike pities the custodial staff.

"Yeah, it's just best to not get caught."

Foxy's peeking out of his cove, his hook drawing back the curtain, his eyepatch flipped upwards so he can stare at Mike through the camera with both eyes. Phone guy signs off and plunges Mike's world into a sweaty silent hell.

"Foxy, darling, you've been so good to me, can you please just stay there?"

Foxy's head moves a bit to the side as if he heard him.

Mike clicks away.

Spooked, he distracts himself by sipping his pop until it's drained and the straw gurgles it's last, and then chucks the cup out the right door. It bounces off something and rolls back into the room.

Mike trails his eyes upward.

Freddy.

Mike slams the door button, heart beating in his throat and in his brain and in his feet. 

An agonizingly smug laugh echoes through the whole restaurant, dark and dumb-sounding. 

"Check." Mike laughs shakily, scanning every camera angle until he finds Freddy back in the dining room." And here I was thinking you might be a pacifist."

He opens the door again, the darkness on either side of him setting his nerves on fire. The brightness of the screen casts floaters in the blackness, squirming through his vision and setting him off when he tries to look for any signs of killer robots. That's how he hadn't noticed Freddy, on top of the fact that he hadn't even shown signs of moving until now, so it caught him off guard.

He checks back on Foxy, who somewhat sheepishly turns to look at the camera as if caught with his hand in the cookie jar; or maybe with his finger on the trigger. He's kind of halfway in, halfway out of the cove. "Please just- stay there."

It's 5:46. Bonnie is getting to be a bit too close, Chica is God knows where and Mike is pretty sure Freddy is in the bathroom. Foxy seems to be slowly creeping towards the left door. Hopefully he truly moves at a snail's pace.

He closes the door on Freddy again, a bit premature, possibly, but the bear terrifies him for some reason.

5:56. "Come on, baby." 12 percent left. Mike cautiously opens the right door. Four minutes left. He checks back on foxy.

"Dammit."

Mike has the sense to close the door on his left, but still jumps when it's pounded on. His lungs stop working, his heart skips two beats. Everything stops.

Bang. _Bang._ **_Bang._ **

His power drains down to zero like it was at 1 and not 10.

The sound of whirring machinery stops. Everything goes completely dark. As the clock digits flicker, he watches the numbers five five nine fade into nothing. 

One minute. One minute to stall, assuming the bots follow their own rules. The doors rise like they're going to swallow him or even take a _bite_ and Mike wouldn't be surprised. He tries to quiet his frantic breaths but it feels like it only makes everything worse. It's all bad. He's gonna die. That's the long and short of it. He's going to die, and no one will notice or care.

Well. There's Jacob.

But how much did Jacob even care in the first place? Enough. More than Mike cares about _him_.

God.

_God_.

If he wasn't going to hell before, then he is now. He can hear heavy metallic footsteps getting closer. Too late, Micheal thinks about writing a note for the cleaning crew or next night guard to find.

What would he even write?

Goodbye cruel world- Micheal Afton.

There isn't much else to say. If he dies now then he'd have failed, no justice, no peace. If he dies now his father wins. Otherwise he'd welcome it, because being alive and Micheal Afton is horrible.

The footsteps stop, and Micheal doesn't dare to look, only screwing his eyes shut tight. Music sputters and dies before it can really start. Mike opens his eyes to see two glowing pinpricks surveying him. Eyes. The thing doesn't move, even when Mike stands up, even when he realizes 'oh shit it's Freddy', or when the power blinks back on displaying 6:01 on the monitor. He doesn't move when Mike backs out the other door and books it to the exit. Or at least, he hopes he didn't. He slams the glass door behind him so violently that it vibrates in place for a few seconds after the impact.

Mike slides down it, catching the breath he held for a minute straight. He can't stay long because he never plans on meeting the cleaning crew alive, but he needs to breathe and process his thoughts before he gets behind the wheel.

Bzzt.

A zapping sound makes Mike's eyes leave his knees. 

Bzzt.

Mike's head snaps up to seek the source of the sound. On an open tailgate of a jacked up ford sits a figure with a long baton resting on their temple.

A familiar fear settles over Micheal like a circlet of laurels, a reminder of what his nights have been like recently. Long sustained hours of terror. He suddenly feels vulnerable just sitting on the pavement, so he scrambles to his feet, the fear that was subsiding at least a little bit coming back in full force.

Bzzt.

The figure lights up the parking lot with the baton, a *tazer*.

Bzzt.

It briefly illuminates the person's face in the early dawn, but the pre-sunrise light casts only more shadows across their features.

Bzzt.

Micheal will have to pass the figure to get to his car. Does he fight or run? He doesn't dare go back inside, even if it's, in theory, safer.

Bzzt.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" The figure calls, sounding amused. Their voice is a rumbly tenor, booming out of the small little body it lives in. Mike straightens out of his pre-sprint position.

"Um. Hi?"

A laugh, long and low, reaches out to Micheal with phantom fingers, drawing him closer. He takes a step forward out of twisted curiosity and bad eyesight.

"Hey." Bzzt. "What's a pretty face like yours doing in a dump like this?"

Is this some sort of fucked up catcall? Mike's face burns. "Excuse me?"

"Sorry, thought you knew." Bzzt. Mike takes another step, just to see the other's face properly.

"Knew what?"

Another laugh, lilting higher in pitch, like a teenager's giggle. "That you're pretty? I've been watching you, you know."

"The hell?"

The man shrugs like he has never cared about anything, crossing his legs and dangling the tazer lazily over the edge of the tailgate.

Bzzt.

"Not in a weird way, only in and out of Fazfucks. Making sure you haven't died. I brought this-"

Bzzt, bzzt, bzzt.

He waves it around like he's fencing.

"To come save you if you hadn't come out yet at 6:05."

"Oh." Um. "Why?"

"I mean-" Bzzt. The stranger waves the thing dangerously close to his own face, "I don't really like watching people die. And- I was in the neighborhood, I guess. The tazer stops them. It*hurts*them, and I love hurting them."

Or maybe he's sadistic. But then again, maybe he was hurt by them first. That's the only way he would even know about any of this. Even _Mike_ hadn't known this went on during the night and he literally watched the birth of the industry.

"You worked here."

The sun is peeking out from below the hills on the horizon, and Mike welcomes the light that comes with it, be it minimal.

"Not here, specifically." He counters, "but close enough."

"Who are you?"

"Jeremy Fitzgerald, nice to meet you." The man shifts grips and holds out a hand to shake, even though Micheal is at least 6 feet away.

Micheal realizes that this could be dangerous, that if he got close the man could taze him in the neck and kill him or human traffick him or whatever.

But honestly, Micheal's self preservation instincts are shockingly low, so he takes the chance, closing the gap between the two of them and gripping the man's hand. They shake once.

"Micheal- Schmidt."

"Charmed." The man flashes Micheal a smile, and Micheal effectively jumps back 3 feet.

"Holy shit! What happened to your face?"

The man's- Jeremy's- smile falters pathetically. He pulls down his baseball cap and crosses his arms over his chest, compacting himself to look smaller. When Micheal had been close, he could finally see his features. One eye is higher than the other, squinted shut as if it had been pulled tight, his eyebrows are faint and patchy, extensions of jagged peach colored scars barely hidden beneath his hairline. He seemed to be baby faced at some point, but not anymore.

Mike realizes too late how rude that was. "I'm sorry- goddamn, it just surprised me."

"It's- alright. Um. I was bitten." The man is worlds more subdued and Micheal chastises himself. 

"By*what*?"

"Metal fucker." Jeremy says, "thing sliced off the front of my brain and now I have cognitive disabilities."

It dawns on him-"The bite -"

"Of 87,” Jeremy choruses with Mike, boredly twirling the tazer again. “Right.”

"You don't seem-"

"What, retarded?"

Mike shakes his head rapidly, "I- I'm not trying to insult you but I keep doing it! I- I'm sorry."

"Not a big deal." Jeremy shrugs. "You should go and get some sleep. I'll see you tomorrow, assuming you're coming back?"

"Yeah. Of course."

"I'd say you're crazy but-" he shrugs, "I'm actually fuckin' insane. I'm sure you have your reasons."

"I-yes. I do."

"It was nice to meet you, Micheal." 

Mike is glad that Jeremy isn't planning on killing him even after he was like the rudest person ever in the world. Wow.

"Um, yeah." Is all he can say, which is lame. He hits his leg when he hears Jeremy's high pitched peal on the way back to his car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment and kudos if you enjoyed it (please) :)
> 
> Thanks, you're a real one.


	5. Chapter 5:Night 4, a Jeremy Interlude.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Upload schedule? What's an upload schedule? I upload when I want.
> 
> Thanks for reading dudes !

The next day after his shift, Jeremy's waiting.

"Hey man." Mike says, completely exhausted but feeling more confident after figuring out the patterns of Foxy and Freddy and managing his time more efficiently.

Jeremy waves the tazer at him in greeting. "Have a seat, buddy."

Mike nods, not questioning him, because he's stupid and  _ now  _ would be a good time to tie him up with duct tape and sell him the the illuminati...but, he trusts this kid? He isn't sure why, or if he really does or not, but he's intrigued and wants to know  _ more _ .

Maybe Jeremy can see that in him. Mike lifts himself to sit beside the other man on the edge of the truck bed.

"How was it tonight?" He asks with a certain distance, fiddling with the tazer by switching it off and on obsessively. Mike wants to take it away before the other man hurts himself.

But he doesn't. Obviously.

"I'm getting the hang of it, actually."

Jeremy hums. Mike notices that he's wearing his hair down today, letting blond strands fall down to mask his face instead of wearing it in a tight bun as he was yesterday. Mike feels a twinge of guilt again, but he has the sense not to bring it up.

"Yeah. I got their patterns down, I think. smooth sailing from now on." Micheal boasts, feeling entirely too good about himself.

"Don't get too confident, they might bite your face off."

_ "He'll bite your face off, Joey. " _

_ "No she won't! She's my friend. She- she- she promised-" _

_ "Fredbear's obviously a boy, dipshit. He wears a bowtie." _

_ "No! Inside." _

_ "Inside what? What the hell do you mean?" _

  
  
_ "Give your girlfriend a kiss, JoJo, go on…" _

Micheal shivers, and Jeremy takes it as disgust.

"Ha. Don't want a face like mine? It's not a real winner with the ladies."

Micheal should say something consoling, or funny, or self deprecating, but all he can think to say is-

"I'm gay."

Jeremy pauses, turning his head so his good eye locks with Micheal's. For a second, Micheal thinks he might be chatting with a tazer wielding homophobe and he'll wake up dead in a ditch.  The next, he's met with an absolute  _ cackle _ , bubbling over and spilling out of the boy; doubling him over at the stomach. 

"Are you not chill with it?" Mike asks, hesitantly laughing a few times just out of pure shock.

"No, totally." He wheezes. "I'm gay as fuck. Its just- I'm usually the one who busts out with it the second time I talk to someone, not the other way around."

Mike internally slaps himself. He isn't usually this socially inept. It must be something about his lack of sleep, or the boy he's talking to.

"Oh."

"Don't worry about it. I say unprecedented shit all of the time." Jeremy waves a hand, laughter fading out, leaving a more relaxed, more welcoming person behind it.

"Cause of your brain?"

"I used to be shy, and I would never swear, but now I say everything that comes to the front of my mind. It's like my filter's broken. My shrink says I can try to fix it but I've been trying and- nope. I cant hold a job anymore. I live in my truck, and I drove here one day and now I'm living in parking lots."

Jeremy blinks as if he was acclimating to waking up. "That was too much. I'm sorry."

"Homeless?" Mike bites his lip. "I'm sorry, I wish I could help."

"You don't need to feel like you need to help me. You don't really  _ know _ me, and I don't really know you."

"Well." Mike says, unable to read the other, due to the hair curtain shielding his face and expression. "Would you like to?"

Jeremy stiffens for a second before giggling again. "Sure."

_ Smooth. _

"Were you just trying to scare me yesterday? " Mike asks suddenly, "The first time you laughed it was like- all Dracula. Now-"

"I sound like a girl, I know. I don't really like my laugh, so- I try to change it. Sometimes I change the way I act too but- I usually forget or can't keep it up."

"Nah. I just thought it was cute."

Jeremy huffs. "Thanks, I guess."

"What, did I bruise your ego?" Mike teases lightly, gazing at the new light rising.

"No." Jeremy replies, completely seriously, and it makes Mike want to hug him.

Which is totally out of left field  _ woah _ .

"Good." Mike murmurs, holding his elbows in the morning chill. "You know, you don't have to hide your face from me."

Jeremy inhales sharply.

"I'm serious. If we're going to be friends, I don't want you to-"

"It's okay, Micheal. Really." Jeremy says somewhat loudly, bowing his head down lower. "I'm okay with it if you don't want to see my face, I don't want to see my face either-"

"Stop-"

"I sometimes wish that the mangle wouldn't have missed."

"The mangle? I-  _ Jeremy _ , I'm not just saying that… I really mean-"

"Shut up!" He screeches, swiping his hand and hitting Micheal on the forearm, " you're lying!"

Taking a gamble (because honestly  _ what else _ has he been doing lately?), Mike grabs Jeremy's shoulder and turns him so they're face to face.

Slowly, Jeremy locks gazes with him, allowing Mike to fully see his features again. It takes a lot of willpower to not flinch or draw back or to look away, but he  _ has  _ a lot of willpower so he sticks it out. He brushes Jeremy's hair back behind his ears.

"You look better with your hair back."

"Stop."

"And your eyes are stunning."

"Micheal-"

"And your nose is cute."

Jeremy has to look away. Mike can't entirely tell but he thinks he's blushing.

"And though I haven't seen it much, I really like your smile."

It slowly spreads across the smaller man's face like a time lapse of a flower blooming. 

"I- thank you."

Mike coughs, ears warming. He lets go of Jeremy's shoulder. "Totally. No prob. Bob."

_ Smooth. _

Jeremy giggles, freely looking up at the purple clouds, no longer hiding his face. "Why are you so nice?"

"I'm not."

"To me you are." He counters, grinning.

"Shut up."

"What. Am I special?"

"No! I mean...I just think you deserve it. Shut up."

"Ok." He relents, elbowing Micheal in the side." But you deserve it too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comment and kudos if you like what you're reading!


	6. Chapter 6: Night(mare) 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've written this out a few times cause I literally have it all ready then close the browser. I'm stupid. It's okay.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's read this far! Love ya forever!
> 
> TW: Violence, and some mention of domestic violence. Language also.

Night 5.

Mike's feeling good despite Phone Guy's untimely end.

It did sober him a bit, but the night before went so well that he hardly let it get him down. Also Jeremy's waiting for him outside and he's not going to die on him cause the kid really needs a friend. (He's 19. Still a kid.)

He's nearing 6 o'clock and he's doing hecking well, Freddy's just hanging out, Foxy hasn't so much as peeked out of the curtain, Bonnie's being annoying but he's  _ always _ annoying and Chica's never really been a problem…

So he's set, really.

Well, he's 'set' until he runs out of power an hour early. He hadn't even noticed until it was too late and Bonnie was at the door. He waves awkwardly.

"Hey, you. How have you been?"

Bonnie screeches, and Mike didn't know they could  _ do _ that, and then he reaches out into the office, fingers outstretched as if he was reaching to palm Mike's head like a basketball. He ducks, blindly throwing the desk chair at him and scrambling backwards.

His mind is filled with  _ awayawayawaygetaway,  _ as he hits the back of his head on the ledge of the desk before he can manage to hole away under it. Bonnie stumbles back at the impact, grabbing the chair with a roar and throwing it violently against the back wall. The upright lockers wobble and fall, falling straight down onto the desk and effectively creating a tent, a barrier, a few seconds of life. Bonnie kicks at the mass of metal, the artifacts of night guards past rattling from within as Mike skitters farther back into the corner.

He isn't religious. His father claimed to be a catholic, deeming himself the patriarch of the family. When he hit Mike for being his gay, bastard son...or mom for being unfaithful (even for years and years after the 'event' happened) he would say he was cleansing them of their sins. Micheal wonders what he was thinking when he kidnapped and murdered those children all those years ago, if he was 'cleansing' them too. Micheal Afton isn't religious but he wouldn't mind being proven wrong. He says a prayer.

Bonnie kicks the lockers again, and when it doesn't budge, starts to kneel down.

"Stop that. No. Stop that." Mike hisses, lodging the trash can in the triangular gap on Bonnie's side, leaving Chica's side, God forbid, wide open. Bonnie places his palms flat on the floor, glimpses of his majesty seen through the cracks between the locker, floor, and trash can.

"Shoulda just took the taser with me." Mike grunts, struck dumb by his lack of foresight "Shit."

Bonnie grabs the aluminum bin in his monstrous hands and crushes it like a pop can. 

"Shit! Fuck you!" Mike is now in the fetal position. Out of options. Out of time. Bonnie reaches his fat fingers below the desk and  _ shitshitfuck- _

Fuck it. There might be  _ one _ more option.

Mike slides out of the right gap, trying not to have a fucking stroke when one of Bonnie's fingers brush his ankle.

He slips a few times on the greasy checkered floor before he straightens up and swings through the open door, sprinting down the hallway.

He laughs, as he runs, because it feels good, and because he's probably in hysterics. The hallway feels eons long. He doesn't know where Chica is.

  
  


_ Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrkkk. _

_Well_ , he thinks as he stares up into Chica's hellhole of a beak, he does now. Chica grabs Mike by the throat, whining happily (or angrily. Do they have emotions?). And slowly, agonizingly, she begins to squeeze.

  
  


_ This. _

_ This is it. The end. No more options. You're going to die. _

_ You're going to hell. And you'll deserve every second that you burn for what you've done. _

Can't- can't breathe-

Mike can minutely register that he's being lifted into the air, like some sort of trophy kill. He doesn't see a light at the end of any tunnel.

All he sees is dark.

  
  
  
  
  
  


"Ah!" He's dropped rather unceremoniously, and he lands on his ankle strangely, causing pain to shoot through his leg. "Fuck."

Is it 6?

Even if he wanted to run, he couldn't. He can barely breathe, he can't see, and now he can't  _ walk.  _ Fuck.

Micheal closes his eyes, resigned. 

"Open your eyes." A voice echoes through the building, reverberating, large but small. Mike's eye's snap open. In front of him, slumped and dejected, sits an empty golden bear costume, stationed between him and Chica, who is just staring blankly down at him. He snaps his head back to where he ran from to see Bonnie mirroring her in the doorway of the office. Is this how he gets stuffed? A weird sort of ceremony? False peace?

"Who are you?"

"It's me." It says simply.

It's enough. This is a _Fr_ _ edbear _ .

"Joey?! Is that- are you  _ in there _ ?"

"Hush, it's of no matter. They _hate_ you, Micheal, almost as much as him. You must leave this place and run. Don't look back."

"Joey, I'm here to avenge you and everyone else he's hurt. I need to  _ know _ what he's done. I need to- stop it from happening again. Ever."

"Take the tape Micheal." There's a VHS in the bear's hand. "It’s all I can offer. It might answer some questions for you. But I warn you- I will not step in again. They will only be more agitated, and they  _ will _ kill you… you can't feel responsible for things you didn't do. Go. Live. For  _ me _ ."

"But-" Michel grabs the tape, hugs it to his chest.

The bear lifts its slumped head, eyes lighted red. "Run."

He does. 

He squeezes past Chica and absolutely sprints past pirates cove, exhilarated by yet another near death experience. He can’t promise that he won't come back, but he will be more careful.

Jeremy looks concerned when Mike emerges wildly, almost forgetting about him entirely and running past him.

"Hey there, you alright?!"

"Oh- Jemmy- Goddamn you have no idea." Mike backtracks, catching his breath on the flanks of Jeremy's ford.

"Fancy telling me what the fuck that means?"

"Fredbear,  _ my brother- _ gave me  _ this _ and - said not to come back here." He thrusts the tape in his face for emphasis. Jeremy lowers it with two fingers, smirking with that lopsided mouth.

"They don't  _ talk.  _ Sure you didn't go delusional?" His eyes sparkle with a mischief that Mike doesn't have the patience for right now.

" _ Yes _ . It saved me. He saved me-stopped them from killing me. The bird had her hand around my throat and I was  _ sure _ that I was dead, but then she dropped me and  _ fuck _ my ankle hurts but-"

"Slow down. I'd call bull but you're out here at 5:24 so I don't know how you would be out here otherwise. What happened, exactly? What do you mean your  _ brother _ ?"

"Sorry Jere but I really wanna watch this tape like- now. Gotta go."

"Wait-" Jeremy reaches out a hand, and Mike stalls for a second, barely containing the patience to do even that. "I mean-"

Jeremy snatches his hand back, seemingly embarrassed. "Let's go out tomorrow. To the park. Take a walk. You can tell me all about everything."

Mike's heart stops for a second (for probably the 7th time that night) and he grins before his mind catches up to him. 

And then it does. His smile slips down and off of his face easier than it sprang up onto it. "Yeah, totally. I'm pretty sure my boyfriend has a fancy promotion presentation tomorrow. What time were you thinking?"

Jeremy's resolve seems to drain out of him, a dullness behind his eyes as he raises his head to look Micheal over. "Boyfriend?"

Micheal twinges uncomfortably. Jeremy seems to swallow further words, picking at his cuticles.

"Yeah. His name's Jacob, he's a-stomhemm" he mumbles to be intentionally intelligible because Mike legitimately has no idea what Jacob's profession is. "But I should be free around 9 on Sunday, so you can maybe sleep through the night, huh?"

"9. Okay." Jeremy confirms, nodding to himself. He clicks on and off the taser a few times, illuminating the vicinity.Mike tries to grab a glimpse of his face for the road. He's been up when he's been supposed to have been catching up on sleep just thinking about it, trying to map it out and remember each curve and pathway, but he can't ever completely recall it. He's thought about trailing his pinkie over his eyelids, pushing his bangs up to see the carnage under them. He's fantasized about feeling the scarred tissue with the sensitive skin on his lips. He's dreamt of that hopeful, spunky openness of his smile greeting him everyday whenever he called out for it.

"What are you waiting for, stupid? Mush!" Jeremy points the taser at him and Mike shakes his head to clear it, before grinning and running off, throwing a quick 'see ya!' for Jeremy to catch behind him.

He'll be a good friend.

He will.


	7. Chapter 7: The Man Behind The Slaughter(haha)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey dudes! I hope you like this one, it's prettty long. 
> 
> TW: Death of children and animals, general insanity, Sucidal thoughts. This is probabally the most distressing chapter just because William is a jerk. 
> 
> But i think it's pretty well written so enjoy!

Mike speeds home, climbing the complex steps in record time, ripping open the door. Jacob might still be asleep, so instead of slamming the door behind him he closes it gingerly. Kicking off his shoes, he traverses the small distance between the entryway and the living room, sitting down in front of the tv with his face only six inches away from the display. Micheal turns down the volume to 5, and inserts the VHS into the player. The screen spits static.

"What are you doing?"

Jacob's voice startles him, Mike jabs the off button on the tv, only realizing after the fact that may look highly suspicious.

"Oh. Um. The player wasn't working the other day and I was trying to fix it. I rented a movie for us to watch after your presentation." Mike turns to look at him, his toothbrush is hanging out of his mouth and his face is unshaven. "You're up early."

Jacob nods, running a hand over his face and Micheal catches a glimpse of his exhausted eyes. " 'm nervous. This could be big for us. You could quit your job and maybe go job hunting for something with normal hours."

"I- I mean it's not a  _ bad  _ job. " Mike shrugs, itching for Jacob to leave, but realizing that he's probably gonna be here for at least another two hours. "I like it enough."

"It takes so much out of you though." He waves his toothbrush around before stuffing it back in his mouth " you're always so tired."

"Yeah." Mike stands up, dusting off his knees and shuffling over to lean on the back of the couch, arms crossed.

"I miss waking up beside you, too." Jacob simpers, and Mike barely stops himself from rolling his eyes. Instead he adopts an easy smile, launches himself off of his perch, and kisses his shoulder in passing.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm gonna take a nap, wake me up before you leave so I can wish you luck."

He passes out the moment he hits their unmade bed. He's shaken awake what feels like 2 seconds later, but the clock flashes 8:45.

"Morning." Micheal murmurs, voice scratchy from his catnap. "You heading out?"

Jacob says something, holding up two ties. Micheal rubs sleep out of his eyes, trying not to fall asleep on the spot.

Mike points to the argyle one. Jacob picks the opposite.

"Wow." Micheal sniggers, stretching.

"Sorry hon, you're shit at fashion."

Mike stands up, and Jacob hands him the tie so he can tie it for him. Mike can feel the nervous energy radiating off of him in waves, so he switches on his comforting voice, peeking up at his boyfriend through his lashes. "You're gonna totally  _ kill _ this. Okay?"

Jacob shrugs, uneasy. Mike finishes tying the necktie with a flourish.

"Hey. You're the smartest person I know." Mike tugs on the tie, kissing Jacob quickly (because now all he can think of now is kissing  _ Jeremy _ and it's a bit of a  _ problem _ ), and then patting him on the chest. "You'll run away with it for sure."

Jacob kisses him again. "Thanks, honey. Thank you."

Micheal thinks about making him a cake. It's what Jacob always does for him. He  _ might _ . Or maybe he'll buy one because he would probably burn everything but the sprinkles. He needs to rent a movie now, anyway, a stop at the bakery is not that out of the way.

"No problem. I'm going to go back to bed." Mike says, flopping backwards again. He hears Jacob mutter a goodbye with a quiet chuckle. Mike waits until he hears the door slam behind his boyfriend before hopping out of the room and back to the TV. Chest clenching with nerves, he turns on the display once again.

He presses play on the VCR.

Static fills the room, logically louder than it really should be, but Micheal's nose is nearly pressed up against the glass so that might be a factor.

A date flashes in the corner. July 7th, 1982. The static slowly fades away to reveal what looks like an animatronics storage room. There are endoskeletons and costumes, heads and random cosmetics flung around. It almost sets off Micheal's fight and flight just looking at it. It's dark, a Fredbear sits in the corner, one of the alternates that would spring into place around the Fredbear endoskeleton when the other was being cleaned. Micheal ignores it. He can't think about it.

"I think I saw your puppy in here! Do you wanna see him?" It's a man's voice, gruff but lighthearted...pandering. Goofy. Its telltale lilt of British intonation is muted, worn away with the years.

Micheal sits up straighter. "Dad?"

A little girl's voice follows, a small squeal of excitement that pushes needles into Micheal's spine and the back of his neck

"No. Please." Mike murmurs to the screen, hoping to hell this isn't what he thinks it is. 

"Come on in!" His father's voice flies even higher in pitch, and Micheal watches in horror as Spring Bonnie walks into the slim light cast by the now open door. Micheal knew the skins doubled as suits.

But this- is  _ this _ how he did it?

The girl, small and blond and almost Lizzie like,  _ disturbingly _ , pauses in the doorway, Her small blue eyes flick around the dark room, and Micheal can see that it registers with her that it isn't right. She takes a step back.

"Where's Roger?" She asks, and Mike watches his father turn slowly to face her again. The rabbit's head tilts to the side, the lifeless eyes flash in the light before turning away from the camera's view.

"He must be  _ hiding _ from us. Help me look for him?" 

The girl shakes her head, smoothing down her buttercup yellow dress in distress. "Roger's afraid of the dark."

"Exactly. He needs your help, Suzie. He's scared and he needs you." Spring Bonnie lowers himself, slowly, onto his haunches and reaches out his hand to Suzie. She falters, her tough exterior failing her for a moment. She steps forward, into the room.

Dad laughs. 

Suzie takes in the parts and half assembled characters that in her eyes, were real. Should be real. One's right in front of her, right?

While she's staring in shock, William slips behind her and closes the door. She hears it slam and spins around, too young to know what to be afraid of but old enough to be afraid.

"What's going on? Where's my dog?"

William drops the act, pointing lazily at a box shoved in the corner, "In there."

Suzie doesn't turn her back to William, instead shuffling sideways over to the indicated box, radiating suspicion.

Micheal's heart pangs. She's so  _ aware _ and  _ smart _ . She's a  _ person _ . She was going to grow up into an adult, be loved, love, pursue her passions and do good things in the world. But because of his father, she won't do any of that.

William stands, motionless. Waiting.

When Suzie gets to the box, she stares at the man behind the mask smolderingly before finally flicking her eyes down to the box.

"NO!" She screams, jumping back 4 feet and into the table behind her, bumping her head on the sharp corner of it. She crumples, crying loudly. "What happened to him?"

William laughs lowly."I ran him over with my car."

Suzie begins to hyperventilate.

"I like dogs," William says offhandedly. "It was an accident. What people really need to realize is that people make mistakes sometimes. Forgiveness is important, dear one."

"Bullshit!" Micheal almost punches the tv. Even behind the mask, Micheal can virtually  _ see _ the condescending, holier than thou smile that's dripping from his stupid words.

"You- you- what are you going to  _ do _ to me?"

William stalks forward and Suzie clutches the back of her head, staring at what must be her mutilated dog in terror.

"You're so pure." He says, instead of answering, getting so close to her that Micheal wants to jump through time and tear him away. "So young. You look a little like my daughter."

He brushes a lock of hair out of her face, and she slaps him away. "Hey. Don't you want to go to heaven?"

"Not today." She whispers so faintly it's barely there.

"Another thing that people need to realize?" Micheal's father matches her in volume. Mike leans even farther in to hear him. "It's not up to them."

With that he lunges at her, wrapping those yellow, fat, pizza-stained fingers around her throat. She can't even scream.

She dies silently and quickly, with a hand around her throat. Mike watches her struggle, watches her head loll to the side. For the first time, Micheal has witnessed a  _ death. _

"Fuck you." Mike whispers, staring at the screen with his palm flat on the display. He feels tears falling down his cheeks. He wont stop them.

She deserves his tears,  _ especially his tears _ , because his father never cried for anyone.

His father makes a disappointed sound in the back of his throat, disappointed in the lack of theatrics.

_ Bang bang bang _ \- 

"Afton? What are you doing in there?"

"I'll be out in a second, Lionel!"

He picks up Suzie's corpse, stuffs her unceremoniously inside a Chica suit, tilting it onto its side in case someone curious wants to peer in.

The footage cuts out.

The corner's date doesn't change. Suzie's dog is still in a box. Suzie's still in the chica suit. It must be the same day.

He lures the next kid in with a promise of Foxy's special show that he only performs for his special friends. He called him by name, once again. Fritz.

He was small, with brown hair that stuck up in cowlicks. He wore an eyepatch and a plastic hook. He was younger than Suzie, maybe 4 or 5 instead of her 7 or 8.

The moment he saw that instead of performing, Foxy was lying dead on the ground, Fritz screamed and tried to run. He almost made it too. He almost made it. he was outside the door, almost home free, when William risked the spring locks and bounded forward-grabbing the boy around his middle and knocking the air out of him.

He sat there crying until William dropped a heavy metal block on his head.

Still unsatisfied, William snorted before stuffing him into Foxy.

Next a blonde boy named Jeremy, held by the wrist, trailed in after William, who closed the door immediately.

"What are you doing? There's no Ice Cream in here." The boys voice is flat, with an underlying edge to it that Mike didn't know a likely 10 year old could possess.

"I still need to make it." William sounds strained, less into playing a character and more  _ desperate _ \- but for what Mike has  _ no idea _ .

"You're lying." Jeremy wrenches himself out of the rabbit's grasp. "You're going to hurt me. I learned about people like you in school. Perverts."

"Little brat." William snarls, turning to face the boy"I'm  _ not _ a pervert."

Instead of answering, Jeremy grabs a wrench that was carelessly thrown to the ground, pointing it at William threateningly, before trying the door. Like he had with Fritz, William lunged forward and grabbed the boy's waist before flinging him to the ground. Jeremy takes the fall like a champ, easily scrambling up and hitting William's knees and feet with the wrench.

"Son of a bitch!" William howls. It seems that Jeremy set off the spinglocks from the knees down, and William fell, taking the boy down with him. William clubs the boy to death with the wrench he took from his hands. The both of them wail in pain until the smallest voice dies away completely. Mike has to look away. The footage cuts off.

Mike can't…  _ doesn't want to _ watch anymore.

But he  _ has to _ .

There can't be much more than this. There  _ can’t be. _

The date flashes July 12 1982, 5 days later. His dad, sans suit, limps in on crutches, legs clad in Jeans. Mike remembers when his dad's legs got hurt but at the time he believed it was from a nasty fall. The kids didn't ask questions of him, it just never ended well. There was a point where they would do whatever he asked, blindly. Whatever consequences the action brought upon them couldn't be worse than the ones they would get for not doing it.

In tow is a confused looking kid with a birthday boy hat on. "What are we doing?"

William grunts, sallow skinned and tired. The child hovers, as if to catch him if he tilted and fell. 

"If this is where you needed to go, I'm happy to have helped but- I would really like to go back to my party now-"

"No." William says gruffly, snatching the boy's wrist, closing the door behind him with difficulty. 

Micheal, overwhelmed and panicked, closes his eyes.

All he saw of the murder was his father putting the small corpse into an empty Freddy costume, and his father looking frustrated afterward.

But he heard everything.

When he hears the telltale static again, he pries open his eyes.

The next date reads June 16th 1983.

"Three days after Liz-"

His father's telltale bark sounds at the door, so jumbled that Mike cant make out the words.

It checks out. After his perfect angel child died because of  _ him _ , he went batshit for a few weeks before becoming crueler than he'd ever been.

Micheal was the same.

Hell. He hates himself.

"You will  _ sit in here _ and think about what you  _ let _ happen." William screams, throwing a boy into the room, "What might happen to  _ you  _ if you aren't careful."

"Joey." Mike mutters, stroking the screen, the 3 inches of pixels that represent a living, breathing version of his brother. 

He's shaking. Crying. He saw what happened to Liz. Watched it happen. Mike only saw the aftermath. Shit. Micheal is a piece of shit. He could have been there for him, they could have supported each other and ditched the deadbeat dad.

Instead he just went ahead and fucking murdered him.

Joey has a panic attack for a half an hour before his dad comes and fishes him out. Hugging him. Apologizing. Mike has to stop himself from punching the screen for the millionth time. And then himself.

September 21st 1985.

That's around the time he-

William tears into the room like he was running from something, closing the door behind him and yelping at nothing.

He backs into a corner, brandishing a baseball bat at nothing.

"Don't come any closer. Don't you  _ dare  _ come any closer! I  _ ended _ you."

He throws the wooden bat at his hallucinations, looking around the moment the bat left his fingers for something else to throw.

His eyes land on the spring lock suit.

"Haha! You little demons, stay back. Stay back!"

He throws a screw driver. It clatters quite uselessly to the ground as he hurriedly suppresses the spring locks with the hand crank and scrambles inside of the suit.

There wasn't a click.

Once, when job hunting at 14 years old, his dad showed him how to work the spring lock suits. The hand crank retracts from the back of the suit, and it suppresses the spinglocks that keep the suit on the endoskeleton in the right places. He repeatedly bashed into his mind to hear the click before getting in.

"No click, you'll lose your dick." He'd said, and when Micheal laughed, he added "and all the functions of your organs. You'll bleed out and die."

That shut him up. His father smiled at him(a rare occurrence), clapped him on the back (even rarer), and said "But the first parts more catchy, eh?"

He only wore the suit once. it was far too big and uncomfortable and Micheal didn't want to lose his dick. Or organs. Or blood.

His father said nothing when he didn't show up the next day. That was one of the literal few interactions that he and his father had that weren't riddled with toxicity.

"You filthy  _ children  _ can't hurt me. I destroyed you. Go to  _ hell. _ "

Mike watches in horror as he laughs in complete derangement, as the suit shakes, his movements and breaths loosening the already loose spring locks surrounding his body.

Dad's about to lose his dick.

Micheal has to close his eyes again when the screaming starts.

It goes on for far too long. The whole suit must have gone off, pushing metal poles through his skull, feet, hand, arms, chest, throat, heart. Little javelins of death.

The screaming finally stops. Micheal's dad is dead, in a rabbit costume, in a pool of blood. Ironic. Good to know he's dead. Good. Good that he's dead. He deserved it.

Micheal stands up. 

He should kill himself too.

He should die, now that he knows that There's no one left to hunt down and kill. Justice  _ has _ been served and Micheal will have played a small part in it. He can go to hell in peace.

September 26th 1985

"What the fuck is it now?"

His dad is still lying on the ground.

And then.

He moves.

Micheal plops back down.

"Holy  _ shit _ . Holy shit. Holy  _ fucking shit _ ."

The corpse sits up, slowly, flexing each limb as it awakens. It tries to take off it's mask.

It's too pixelated to really see it, but the sound of flesh tearing makes Micheal want to puke. What used to be William let's the mask fall back down. He paces.

September 29th 1985

The door opens. William runs forward, the fear of spring locks no longer relevant. the man who opened the door closed it with a yelp. William gurgles.

March 15th 1989

  
  


"That was yesterday."

_ Pound pound pound _ .

"MICHEAL!" It's barely his father's voice, barely a voice at all, but he  _ knows _ that it's him.

Micheal scrambles away from the tv, looking at the apartment door for good measure.

"I FEEL YOU HERE, MICHEAL! LET ME OUT!!!! LET ME OUT OF HERE  _ I'M DYING _ . I  _ CAN'T BREATHE!  _ YOU LITTLE BASTARD I FEEL YOU HERE! MICHAEL I WILL  _ KILL-" _

Micheal ejects the tape, numbly staring down at it.

He's still alive, even if he's dead.

  
  


Mike bites his lip.

"I'm going to do something stupid." He says out loud.

No one responds.

  
  


He takes that as an invitation to go ahead and do it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comment if you've enjoyed!


	8. Chapter 8: A Walk in the Park

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yoo trigger warning: Death again. Like, the boys are telling their stories, basically, to eachother. 
> 
> Love ya'll so much! This isn't my best recieved story because I don't think anyone's actively looking to read something like this, but to you all who've enjoyed it and supported me, I give my gratitude to you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

He pulls into Fazfucks (Jeremy's a fucking genius) at 10:30, an hour and a half after opening. It's not quite lunch yet so there aren't many kids, but there are a few cars in the closest spots. Some teens come early in the day to play the arcade. That's what Micheal used to do.

He slams the car door behind him, placing his keys in between his fingers like metal claws. His mom used to do that in dark parking lots or around Dad's strange business partners. Mike picks up the pace when he passes Jeremy's truck

"Woah there, hot rod."

Jeremy's voice doesn't stop him, he continues to walk by him at a steady pace, throwing a biting remark over his shoulder. 

"Do you  _ ever _ leave here?"

"No."

Mike spins around. "Look, I really respect you but I need to do something."

"Is it going to traumatize the children?"

Micheal pauses. The children. Right. Even if they're only nerdy arcade dwellers, they could still be hurt if he unleashed his undead father upon them.

"It might actually  _ kill them. _ " Despite his words, Mike takes another step towards the glass double doors.

"Come here please." Jeremy has a tone of voice that both sounds urgent and bored and it's proven hard to read so far.

"It might not." Mike offers. it sounds weak in his own ears.

"If you need to do this so bad, at least wait 'til closing."

"I don't think. I can? Like. This is all I amount to and I've finally got a  _ lead _ -"

"The fuck? No it isn't." Jeremy sounds nonplussed. "Fazfucks ain't worth it."

"No...you dont- god." Mike doesn't want to explain. He never has before. Usually, if you know you know if you don't you don't. "Listen. Have you- do you know about the Aftons?"

Jeremy's face contorts in a sort of sympathy. "I met the other founder of Fazbears, Henry Emily. He told me most of it was urban legend, but the whole family disappearing off the edge of the earth is kind of horrible."

"Okay, so. Not every Afton was...murdered."

"Yeah. William went missing and that one son killed himself."

Mike flinches. "Ok, no he didn't. The second one."

"What do you mean?"

"It's. He's  _ me _ alright?" Micheal grits out, burning holes in cracked asphalt beneath his converse with his eyes. "I'm Micheal _ Afton _ . And my dad is a horrible person, and his reanimated corpse is somewhere in there and-"

" _ What?! _ "

"It’s okay. I wanna kill him for good."

"No it's  _ not  _ okay. What?  _ What?! _ "

"I don't want to get into it." Micheal just short of pouts, crossing his arms. "It’s all too much to think about."

"No. Yeah...Holy shit. I-Lets go for a walk now okay?"

"Didn't you hear me? I'm going to find him and pound him into the ground."

"And you will. We will. Tonight, or tomorrow or- whatever...ok? Not now."

"I'm not crazy."

"And I am, so please bear with me here? Get into the passenger seat. Let's go somewhere, um, far away."

Mike stares at the smaller-statured man in front of him, his thinness making him look almost frail despite him truly being the opposite.

He sighs, then tilts his head ever so slightly and if Mike didn't know any better he would think Jeremy was giving him  _ puppy dog eyes _ , and it comes as an even bigger surprise that it  _ works. _

"Fine." he grumbles, glancing at the restaurant before turning his back to it and climbing into Jeremy’s Ford. His feet tramp down McDonalds bags and napkins in an attempt to find a position as Jeremy closes the tailgate and then climbs into the driver's seat.

“I’m sorry for the mess. I didn’t- I don’t know.”

  
  
“It’s no big deal.”

  
  
“I’m trying to find a job,” He continues, “Though it would make me feel better if you quit Fazbears after you- do what you need to do. I dunno.”

  
  
“Why do you care?” Micheal asks darkly, turning to pull his seatbelt on. Jeremy shrugs, grinning.   


“I like you.” He says simply, and when Micheal’s face ignites Jeremy doesn’t even notice, just continuing with his thought as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “And I’ll buy a place once I’m well established. I have some money left in my college savings account that my parents forgot about-”   
  


“Did you go to college?” 

“Hah- no.” Jeremy rubs the steering wheel absentmindedly, “I can’t- do anything that takes a lot of focus or math, or discipline. Speaking of, while I’m driving it’s best if you don’t talk to me?”

  
  
“Oh my god. Are you like  _ okay to drive _ ?”

  
  
“Bitch,  _ please _ , I drove to suburban Ohio from Chicago. I’ll be okay to get to the park. Just, seriously don’t talk or touch the radio or anything.”

Micheal laughs, at the absurdity of it, at the fact that he doesn’t exactly mind that he’s in the car with someone who doesn’t have half of his brain, at the cute little nonsensical quirks in the boy’s voice, because he’s somehow not thinking about the thing he’s been thinking about for four years just because of someone he barely knows or (should realistically) cares about told him not to. 

“Did you graduate High school? How old were you when-”   


  
“What did I say?” Jeremy jokes, and then he kind of melts a little bit. “I- did. But I think it was more out of pity than anything. I was-- I was 16. But- it’s alright. I’m fine.”   


  
“I- I’m sorry dude.”   


  
“Don’t pity me, please?” Jeremy snaps, throwing the car into drive. “And I won’t pity you.”

  
  
It’s a shitty feeling. After Liz died, everyone around him had a near constant fear of setting Mike off. After  _ Joey  _ died, Micheal lost most of his friends, and then when his mom died, he had to drop out of school. “Deal.”

As promised, they take the drive in complete silence. Jeremy is a cautious driver, maybe  _ too _ cautious, but it does make him feel a bit better that Jeremy isn’t some sort of speed demon that will kill the both of them with one wrong move.

They get to the park, and it's too early for families, but there are plenty of thin women jogging in their gym shorts. He looks a little bit too long at a pair of them that pass by as they climb out of the car and Jeremy stares him down.

"I thought you were gay."

Micheal shrugs. " I am, but I find women pretty too."

"You're a fucking enigma." Jeremy shakes his head as he walks away. Mike has to jog to catch up.

"What does that mean?"

"Shit, man..my troubles are like  _ nothing  _ compared to yours, and I'm like the most fucked up person I've ever met."

"Wow. Thanks?"

"Metal fucker filleted my brain. Full stop. And  _ you _ ? You're an Afton? That's literally insane. And you came running through the damn parking lot at 10:30 in the morning talking about undead fathers slaughtering children, just a few hours after you ran through a parking lot talking about your brother giving you a VHS. And even though it's completely nonsensical I believe you, so that's fucked. And-”

  
  
“Hey- I know. I’m sorry I dragged you into this. I just need to- fix it? You know?” Micheal shifts uncomfortably as they walk side by side. “I caused all of this so-”

  
“Hold on a second buddy, it sounds like your  _ father _ did, not you.”

  
  
“By  _ extension _ .” Micheal huffs. “I had everything to do with everything. I lived, they died. I could have-”

  
  
“Sounds like you have a little thing called Survivor's Guilt, bucko.” Jeremy says entirely too loudly, “I don’t know what happened but I doubt you had as much of a hand in it as you think you do.”

  
  
“You’re right. You  _ don’t  _ know what happened.” Micheal snaps rather cruelly, and Jeremy closes his mouth with a frown. 

They walk for a few minutes in silence. Micheal notices that Jeremy keeps his baseball cap brim pulled down, and despite what Micheal said before, his hair is hanging down limply again. Hiding from the world. It makes Micheal mad tha t he feels like he has to. Jeremy’s hand is swinging at his side, every so often brushing Micheal’s own. Before Micheal can think, he’d grabbed it. Jeremy looks at him strangely.

  
  
“What are you doing?”

  
  
“I’m sorry. Do you want-” Micheal tries to pull away but Jeremy doesn’t let him. 

  
  
“No don’t stop.” Jeremy blushes, “I was just making sure you meant to.”

“I- yeah.” Micheal sniffs. 

“You could tell me, you know?”

  
  
Micheal’s heart stops. I mean, he was being pretty obvious that he’s kinda fallen for him (and fast) but he- he  _ can’t _ . He has a boyfriend that he’s supposed to see in a few hours. 

  
  
“What happened to you. I promise I won’t judge you. I’ll tell you about my thing, too.”

  
  
Oh. Of course. Micheal burns scarlet. What did he just admit to himself?

  
  
“I-” Micheal coughs, hyper aware of the other’s hand in his. “I’ll tell you  _ once. _ And then never again. Just so you know, you know?”

  
  
“Alright.” Jeremy agrees. “Shall we sit?”

  
  
They find a shaded bench near the river away from any other possible ears. Micheal takes a shuddering breath. “Okay. Abridged version? I was supposed to watch my sister on the opening day of one of my dad’s restaurants, but I went out with my friends instead, so my dad just had my brother and sister stick together. My sister got too close to one of the...things. And it ate her.”

  
  
“Ate-?”

  
  
“Like- it grabbed her and pulled her in and-” Micheal can’t force out the rest, Jeremy squeezes his hand. “I saw it after. Dad called me in and made me watch them-- scrape her out. He made sure to tell me everyday that it was directly  _ my fault _ \-- and it kinda was.”   
  


“Micheal, I don’t-”

  
  
“So I was angry, I had a lot of  _ rage _ inside of me that I couldn’t direct at my father because he’d just  _ hurt  _ me. So I- I just harassed my brother whenever I felt bad about myself. That is what I regret the absolute most….and I- he was just  _ terrified all the time _ , and it was because of _ me _ . Just a month later, my dad told me to scare him straight so he’d stay away from the robots. On his birthday I-”

  
  
Micheal starts crying, and he doesn’t know if he can finish. He inflicted on his brother something so similar to what Jeremy went through, he’s sure to hate him if he tells him.

  
Then again, it would keep him safe. Associating with Micheal will probably get anyone killed.

That’s why he doesn’t ever stay. That’s why his exes never see him again after Micheal says the final goodbye. That’s why he doesn’t have friends.

It’s just for the best. 

“I pretended to make Fredbear like  _ kiss _ him? So I lifted him up there and it- crushed his head. I killed him. I absolutely killed him, there’s  _ no question  _ on that one.”

  
  
Jeremy makes a noise that Micheal really can’t decipher. 

“So it was barely even safe to sleep at home anymore, but at that point I just- thought I deserved it. Soon after my mom-- and then-”   


“It’s okay. I understand.” Jeremy cuts him off, and Micheals somewhat grateful. His voice was shrill in where it had started hushed and even “I’ll talk now.”

“I needed money so I could move out by the time I graduated, but no one was hiring except for...one place. It was run by Henry Emily and he was insistent that it was totally safe. And...honestly it wasn’t  _ bad _ , really. I just never told him what went on at night. I was the first one in the position… when he’d asked if anything strange ever happened at night I thought he was teasing me. I never told him anything in fear that I was actually hallucinating. I have a family history of hallucinations? So it wasn’t that far out of left field.”

“How the hell-”   


  
“So-- I assume it’s kinda like, y’know, your job. There’s patterns and stuff and they’re all easy to deal with. I’m not even sure what they would have done with me if they caught me anyway? Except for the old ones, they would definitely tear me apart. And the puppet? I don’t know what the puppet’s deal was.”

  
  
“The  _ what _ .”

  
  
“You know, it hung out in the prize corner and shit. Anyway, there was one wild card that I never knew how to deal with, it was stealthy and silent, and completely unpredictable. It was called the Mangle. I think it was supposed to be like, a cute version of foxy? But totally failed, because it was easy to take apart and the kids would mess with it and it turned out to be this total mutation, and it seemed to be mad about it. I closed my eyes for a split second, and bam-”

  
  
He gestures in a wide, clawed motion that makes Micheal jump. “Snagged me! Totally thought I was dead. Custodial found me, also thought I was dead, but then when they realized I wasn’t I was in a hospital the next time I woke up. Had 4 surgeries in 3 days. Took me almost a year to function again, and had a whole bunch of surgeries during then. Better now, though, just messed up.”

  
  
“Wow. I’m so sorry.”

  
  
“My whole family didn’t vanish off the face of the planet, Mike. I’m fine. An eye for an eye is all this is.” 

Mike really really wants to take his hat off, and see the scar.

  
  
But of course he wouldn’t actually do that.    
  


“You want to see don’t you?” Jeremy seems to have read his mind. Mike winces.

  
“Umm.”   


  
“Nah it’s okay, everyone I meet who knows wants to see.” He rips his hat off, leaning down so Mike can see the crown of his head. Before Mike can even open his mouth, Jeremy continues. “You can touch it, too. Everyone wants to.”

Mike runs his pointer finger along the surgery scar that forges a path of flesh through Jeremy’s hairline, a rare moment of silence falling between the two abrasive men. It’s almost reverent. Mike has to stop himself from kissing Jeremy right then and there, because that would be cheating(even if Micheal’s an ass, he isn’t a cheating ass) and probably taking advantage of the other. 

“How did they-” Mike hates to break the moment, but he knows he has to. Jeremy hurriedly stuffs his hat back onto his head. 

  
  
“It was bad.” He states loudly, making joggers on the trail nearby turn their heads. “Like, fucking, migrane central, they had to take some of my brain out because it was bleeding. You knew that.”

Mike nods. 

He shrugs. “But I’ve got some of it left. They didn’t have to take the entire frontal lobe out, and they put plastic in there so my head wouldn’t heal flat.” He raps his knuckles on his head over his hat. 

Micheal laughs slightly, even if it isn’t funny. “Ouch.”

  
  
“It’s okay.” He shrugs, “It could have been worse. I could have died, or lost all of my dignity and self control. I lost  _ most  _ of it.” He stares intensely at Micheal, which almost makes him blush, “But not all.”

  
  
“Okay.”

“Don’t look so scared, shithead, I’m not gonna murder you.”

  
  
“I didn’t-” Micheal laughs in a short burst, butterflies coming back in full force. He’s so unpredictable! Micheal finds that exhilarating. It makes him think about the bad things less, and the spontaneity of the future more. “I’m  _ not _ .”   
  


“Let’s go eat something.” Jeremy shouts suddenly, scaring away all of the crows in a 12 foot radius.

“Food?”   


  
“Of course, idiot.” Jeremy stands and links arms with Micheal.

Mike thought that he would never find someone who he could truly fall in love with, but Jeremy has gone through the same things that he has, has about the same amount or  _ more _ trauma than he does. He’d be a challenge to deal with, but so is Micheal, if he’s really being  _ himself _ . Dark humor and self depreciating and painful memories. Not pleasant and compliant like he’s been with Jacob. Playing house. 

But he-

He can’t leave him like  _ this _ . For someone else. Poor Jacob. 

  
  
Maybe it would hurt him  _ more _ to know how much he really really wants to. 

“Okay, food, and then we’ll buy a cake and a movie, okay?”

  
  
“Deal"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember to comment and Kudos if you got this far! (If you did congrats that was over 11000 words)


	9. Chapter 9: Notquiteheartbreak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okok if you see a decrease in writing it's because I wrote this chapter before a bunch of the other ones that came before it. Also my life has completely imploded and I'm crying so hi whats up i hope you like the story. 
> 
> Thanks for reading :)

  
When Micheal finally gets home after his not-date (totally not), he hesitates before opening the door. He should break it off with Jacob. He shouldn’t lie to him anymore. Even if this thing that’s happening with Jeremy doesn’t go anywhere-

Micheal should let Jacob find a man or woman that will be a good partner who really really loves him, who will look at him like he hung the stars up in the sky, who won’t lie to him just as much as they tell the truth. Who will look at him how Micheal is sure he looks at Jeremy. 

He deserves that much, and so much more. 

He twists the doorknob. It’s that dead space between when Jacob gets home and when Micheal goes to work. Mike opens the door to see that Jacob’s watching tv, sprawled across the couch. He looks very attractive in the moment(in a oh so delectably tight tee shirt and jeans) and Micheal almost sets back the whole ‘break up with Jacob’ plan so he can make out with him.

But only almost. 

Jacob looks over at Micheal when the door squeaks, smiling sadly as if he knows what’s coming. 

“Hey.”   


  
“Hi.”

“Did you get your promotion?”   


  
“Ha. I won’t know for a few days.” Mike nods, and goes to set the cake down on the table. Jacob looks at it but doesn’t seem to be focused on the sugar. Only on Micheal. Which is stressful. He sets the rented movie on the coffee table. Jaws. The two thought it was kinda ironic.

  
  
Mike shuffles to sit next to him, and lets Jacob pull him against his chest. It's a familiar motion that sometimes made him feel small, but mostly made him feel safe. They watch the sitcom that’s on together, in silence. Everything’s different than it was when he left this morning. He doesn’t want to do this anymore, pretend that he’s happy living like this everyday. 

After a while, Micheal is surprised to feel tears running down his face. He hurries to wipe them away, but Jacob notices. 

“I know something’s wrong.”

  
  
It’s not a question, it’s a gentle understanding. He’s always been so good with trying to understand. He just never… never could. Even if he wanted to.

That just makes Micheal cry harder.

“Honey.” Jacob sounds slightly exasperated, “You need to talk to me. Please.”

Micheal sits up to face him, taking his hands. “I’m sorry- I’m so sorry.”

  
  
“For what?” That gentleness in his face hardens a bit. “Have you been cheating?”

  
  
“No. No. No- I promise I haven’t.” Mike isn't that kind of bad. He can’t be. He _can't_ be. “But I’ve met someone.”

  
  
He whispers the last bit, and Jacob pulls his hands out of Mike’s grip. It isn’t quite a sharp movement, but it’s a sure one. 

  
  
“That sounds like cheating to me.”

  
  
“Nothing happened.” Mike reinforces, “I’m not- I’m not a  _ cheater _ , okay?”

  
  
“Then why are you telling me this?”

  
  
“I just- you deserve  _ better _ than me.”

  
  
“Where is this coming from?”   


  
“You  _ do _ deserve better than me. Like, a million times better than me.”

  
  
“Why?” He looks truly mad for the first time since they got together. He has a smoldering type of anger that lives behind his eyes. He doesn’t lash out, he keeps it in. The opposite of his dad. “I love  _ you _ , Micheal. No one else.”   


  
“You do?” Micheal sobs, hugging himself. “Why?”

  
  
“Because you’re wonderful.” Jacob tries to wipe Micheals tears away, but it’s like Micheal had opened floodgates. He didn’t know that this would hurt so much, that he actually cared so much. Even though he knew somewhere inside of him that Jacob was probably in it for the long haul, but he'd tried to convince himself that Jacob was just invested in this as he was. Halfway. “And you’re  _ this _ upset about  _ not _ cheating, which is kind of cute.”   


  
“No.” Micheal mutters, “You don’t understand.”

  
  
“Then explain it to me, please.” He brings Micheal close to his chest, enveloping him in  _ warmth _ and  _ love _ again. He doesn’t  _ deserve it  _ from someone whole and unbroken. 

“I’m-don’t you get it? I’m  _ broken _ . And so is he. You aren’t. I don’t want you to be.”

  
  
“You aren’t broken.”

  
  
“I am, I  _ am _ .”

  
  
“Why do you think that? You’re lovely.” He tilts Micheals chin up, about to kiss his nose or forehead or something, and Micheal can’t hold it in any longer.    


  
“I killed my fucking brother.”

  
  
“What?” Jacob lets go like Micheal had just become burning hot and if he kept holding on he would scald his fingertips. 

“I killed him. He’s dead because of me.”

  
  
“Did you  _ mean _ to?”   


  
“Of course I didn’t! I loved him- I- “ Micheal has to stop, suck in a breath. “My dad hit me.”

  
“What?”   


  
“He hated me because he wasn’t my biological father, because my mom cheated on him.”   


  
“Mikey.” Jacob whines, sadness filling his eyes.

“He hated me so much, but he loved my siblings. I was mean to them, sometimes, but I- of  _ course _ I loved them. They were the sweetest kids ever.”

  
  
Jacob bites his lip to stop himself from interrupting. 

  
  
“Then my sister died, and I think I went a little crazy. I picked on my brother so much that he’d cry. I didn’t- I didn’t stop. And Dad would encourage me because he thought that if I scared him he’d be safe- but then me and my friends- caused his death. We didn’t think- we never thought-”

  
  
“It’s not your fault-” Jacob gets out haltingly, looking uncomfortable. 

  
  
“Yes it is! Even if I didn’t mean it-” Micheal stops again, moving on. “Then my mother died in a car crash.”

  
  
“Oh my god.”

  
  
“And my dad just- left.”

  
  
“Micheal.”

  
  
“So ever since I’ve been looking for him. I can’t stop looking until I find him.”

  
  
“He sounds like a piece of shit, Mike! Why didn’t you- tell me any of this?”

  
“Because it’s horrible! My life's one big tragedy and it’s going to end in one too. Okay? I can’t drag you down with me.”

  
  
“I want to help. I want to  _ help _ .” He’s on the edge of pleading. 

  
  
Micheal stands up. Jacob is still sitting at the edge of the couch. 

“I’m sorry.”

  
  
“Micheal.”

  
  
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry-”

  
  
“Ok I get it, you’re breaking up with me.” Jacob snaps, his voice sharpening uncharacteristically “I get it. But,  _ please  _ listen to me this  _ one _ time.”

  
  
Michael flinches. His actions thrown back at him like a dart.

“Say you will.”

  
  
“I will.”   
  


“Don’t follow your father anymore, okay? You’re more than your past, even if you don’t believe it. If this- person is the one that is going to help you, then _fine_...but let them in. Let them _help you_ _move on_ \- don’t stew in this forever. Don’t run back to the person who hurt you just because- you think you’re broken and not good enough. I’m not asking you to forget, alright? I’m just asking you to try and move on. You’ll self-destruct otherwise.”

Micheal lets out another broken sob. “No one has ever cared like you.”

  
  
“I love you, Honey.” He smiles sadly, “You’re so great. I hope everyone else can see it.”

  
  
“How can you even  _ say _ that after-”

  
  
“I know you.” He doesn’t. He really really doesn’t, but Micheal hugs him anyway. He squeezes him hard. 

  
  
“Thank you for everything.”

  
  
“Mhm.” Jacob pats his back. “You can stay here as long as you need to.” 

  
  
Micheal nods, knowing full well that he’s going to leave tonight without saying goodbye.

“Okay.”

  
  
They stay there like that until Micheal falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are my lifeblood.


	10. Chapter 10: A figurative pile of shit :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi welcome back hows it cracking, have fun reading!
> 
> tw: again tiny brief suicidal thoughts and non graphic violence? Like kinda but not reallly graphic cause i couldn't write it if i tried.

That night, Micheal left Jacob asleep on the couch and hurriedly stuffed all of his minimal belongings into Jacob’s travel bag. He left behind 80 dollars to pay for it because Micheal’s not a thief either.

However he  _ is _ homeless, which would usually be a problem, but he’s not thinking that far ahead at the moment. After Jeremy convinced him to wait, all he’s been doing is scheming, and he’s decided that tomorrow (today?) (It’s like 12:40) (Sunday) (The lord’s day) (All businesses are closed because they live in ‘Christianville’, so to speak), is his time to strike. 

  
  
But first, Jeremy. He pulls into the Fazbears parking lot around 1:00. Jeremy’s truck is here, a beacon the color of blood or a particularly angry dumpster fire. He looks at it from his spot, drained, emotionally exhausted, but ready for this business to be over. Maybe he can jump off a building or something. He doesn’t want to think anymore, he doesn’t want to hurt anyone else ever again, see the betrayal written on their features as once more, he’d let them down.

Joey, Lizzie, Mom, Jacob, countless others. 

It’s that moment when they realize that Micheal is a piece of shit and nothing else. They saw something that wasn’t there. They put their faith into nothing, no one. 

No one of importance anyway. 

He’s thought a lot about what he should do about Jeremy, a friendless loner just like him. He doesn’t want to leave him behind.

But, if he gets too attached, if he becomes vulnerable and falls in love, there will be that inevitable moment with Jeremy where he  _ realizes _ that he’s bad. Might as well get that out of the way sooner than later. 

He takes a deep breath, opens the door, locks it closed behind him. 

  
  
When he opens the passenger side to Jeremy’s truck, Jeremy himself is already wide awake and looking at him.

  
“Hey.” Mike says quietly, hoping his eyes aren’t still red from crying on the way over. “Have you slept at all?”

  
  
“No. You?”

  
  
“Only a little.”

  
  
The silence is tense, stretched taut like a trampoline. Jeremy’s fingers drum on the dash, and his hair is pulled back from his face in a loose ponytail. Micheal marvels at him in the rearview mirror (to not be obvious), playing with a rip in his own jeans. 

“Do you have a plan?” Jeremy asks after a while of this. He must be tired because he’s  _ quiet _ and that shouldn't be strange but it is.

“Do you have the taser?”

  
  
Jeremy nods, jabbing a thumb toward the back. “I thought that whoever didn’t have the taser could have the ax.”   


  
“Oh, nice!” Micheal says, a bit too excitedly, but it just makes Jeremy grin. 

“Yeah, I thought so.” Jeremy giggles, rubbing his palms up and down his jeans. “When do you wanna go in? Do you think they’re--active?”

  
  
Mike doesn’t know. There are no security guards stationed on the weekends, but that isn’t to assume that they don’t still have the same nightly rituals as usual. Micheal doesn’t really want to wait 5 hours and risk running into custodial, but he also doesn’t want to be dismembered. 

Mike twirls the keys around his fingers. “You wanna check?”

  
  
Jeremy nods once, like he was waiting for Micheal to ask, launching himself out of the truck and around to the bed. He rustles through the shit in the back loudly until Micheal follows suit, joining him at the boot. “Here.” 

  
He says, thrusting the ax at Micheal, who tests its weight in his hand. It’s top heavy and Micheal isn’t a fighter but he wouldn’t hate the feeling of swinging this at one of the bots. 

  
  
He reconsiders this urge though, it wouldn’t really do that much, would it? He imagines himself standing over a helpless Jeremy and swinging the ax at Freddy or someone, and it zinging off and flying across the ground. Not a great ‘knight in shining armor’ moment for him.

Not that Jeremy isn’t capable (he’s kind of absolutely definitely more capable than Mike is). But. Mike likes to fantasize sometimes, is all. 

Jeremy twirls his stun baton, flexing his wrist, a deranged kind of excitement in his eyes.

  
  
“Ready, kid?” Mike asks, elbowing him when he comes to stand at his side, looking at the darkened glass ceiling to floor windows that are trademark of his dad’s restaurants. 

“Yeah.” Jeremy says, grinning lopsidedly at Micheal, grabbing his hand. “Let’s do this.”

  
  
Micheal should be thinking about cutting down his father, but all he can think about is the steady presence of the taller man’s hand in his. 

When they get to the doors, Micheal disattaches himself from his companion to peer into the window. It’s around 1:30 maybe, probably closer to one. They would have moved, by now, on a normal day. He can see three distinct silhouettes on the stage. The Cove’s back is to them so he can’t tell if it’s closed or open. Jeremy takes the keys from Micheal’s slack fingers, fumbles with the lock.    
  
The night is nice and quiet. Micheal presses his palm to the dirty pane of glass, savoring the chill of the surface against his skin. The wind ruffles his hair, cools the sweat on his neck and forehead. He can faintly hear the buzz of cicadas from the woods a little down the road.

This is the outside world.

“Ha!” Jeremy exclaims, finally figuring out how to unlock the door, and pushing it open.

And in there? It’s hell.

Micheal follows his friend into the flames. 

  
  
He’s never been in the main part of the restaurant at night, not really. His journeys through the dining room have been frenzied sprints, injected with adrenaline and heart-stopping fear. Now, ambling in with company and a weapon, it feels almost like a dream.   


  
They both jump when the door slams closed behind them, and Micheal throws his arm out in front of Jeremy as a sort of shield. Against nothing of course, but they hold that position for a few seconds before Micheal embarrassedly draws his arm back and stuffs his free hand into his pocket. 

They stare at each other, Micheal’s back to the mainstage, Jeremy’s to the cove. The dining room feels like simply a room. It’s unnerving. 

“So?” Jeremy says eventually, eyes pointedly set on the closed pirates cove over Micheal’s shoulder. “Where is he?”   
  


“I-” Micheal closes his eyes, trusting that Jeremy is aware of his surroundings as he tries to remember. “It has to be in this hallway-”

  
  
He points to the hallway to the left of the dining room. “There was a room-”

Micheal starts over to the hallway and Jeremy stays at his back, switching on and off the taser obsessively. Mike can see it’s glow illuminate the room all around him and hear each electric buzz, but his eyes are set on the walls. He doesn’t remember seeing the room on the cameras, at all. He must have overlooked something. He knows he’s in here. He has to be. 

He paces the hallway a few times as Jeremy stands guard at the end, almost  _ daring _ them to come alive. 

“This doesn’t make sense.” Micheal hisses, “It’s supposed to be here!”    
  
Jeremy tenses. Micheal tries his best not to panic.    
  
“Look harder.” He says back finally, not looking away from the main stage for a second. 

Micheal tries. He squints in the darkness, wishing he had brought a flashlight. He backtracks to the office, peeks in, and pushes the door light. It illuminates the hallway and Micheal trails his fingers over the peeling paint until-

**Bang!**

Micheal draws his fingers back in alarm, confused. 

**Bangbangbang-**

_ “MICHEAL!!” _ _   
_ _   
_ Both men jump, Jeremy’s attention turned away from the stage for only a split second, before he turns back, compulsively shooting bewildered looks over his shoulder. 

Micheal can see it in his barely illuminated eyes. He didn’t believe him.

Until now. 

**Bang bang** _ “MICHEAL! I CAN HEAR YOU BREATHING!”  _ **bang bang bang bang-**

“Dad.” Micheal says flatly.    
  
A crackly sound overwhelms his mind, like wet coughs, like sandpaper on a chalkboard.    
  
“ _ That’s right, son.”  _ The voice, horrible and inhuman, somehow attempting to be  _ pleasant _ .  _   
_ _   
_ “How are you--”   
  
_ “Let me out, Micheal. I want to see how you’ve grown.”  _ The monster says. Micheal blinks violently to prevent tears.    
  
“No you don’t.”   
  
_ “My son- my only remaining son-- _ ”   
  
“You never loved me.” Micheal whispers, not even knowing if he’s loud enough to be heard. He raises his voice. “What do you expect me to do now? Let you out? Let you terrorize more people? More children?”

_ “No, Micheal. I simply want to be put out of my misery. Please. I’ve been here for so long.” _

Micheal pauses. He’s crying, to his disgust. He’s crying. 

**Bang!**

_ “Are you still there?!!!” _

In response, Mike strikes the wall with his ax. It slices through the newer drywall like butter, fine powder drifting around and dispersing in the still buzzing hall light. Again, and again, and again.

He tears at the wall and his father  _ laughs _ that hacking laugh and Micheal imagines that there’s no wall between them, that he’s hacking at him instead. He needs to do it. He  _ needs to _ . It terrifies him. 

  
Finally his nonsensical swinging reveals a door, a doorknob. He pulls at the edges of the drywall where the door’s supposed to open. Jeremy’s turned around now, feet shifting in nervous energy. Mike attempts to open the door, and it’s locked.

_ “Oh, smart boy, beautiful boy, you can do this-” _

_   
_ _   
_ Mike pounds on the wood with his fist. “Shut UP!!”

His voice cracks humiliatingly.

_ "Don't you have  _ questions, _ Micheal? Burning questions you’ve been  _ dying _ to get answers for?” _

“Why. Dad.” Micheal shifts his grip on his ax, overwhelmed. He didn’t think this would happen, there’s nothing he could ever do to prepare for this. He should have a million questions, a million things to yell in his face. This man killed his siblings, his mother, innocent  _ children _ but all Micheal’s numb lips can utter is-

“Why?” He whispers, forehead pressed against the locked door. “Why would you do this to us?”

  
  
_ “I didn’t, Micheal.”  _

“Yes. You  _ did _ . You fucking  _ did _ , dad, you made these goddamn robots! You killed those...those  _ children _ for no reason! You  _ did this _ **_._ ** ”

“ _ You killed your siblings, your mom died in a- _ ”

Micheal lashes out and hits the door handle, trying to break the lock, wanting to bury the ax in his father’s neck instead, hit him until he’s not even undead anymore. Just...gone. 

_ “I see you’re angry-” _

_   
_ _   
_ “It’s time for you to go. It’s fucking time.” 

Micheal kicks in the door.

And.    
  
And.

  
It’s one fucking thing seeing it on a security camera. It’s another when he’s towering over you. 

Disgusting, yellow-brown fuzz covering each limb, wires, bits of metal, and dust hanging off and around every joint. Barely-there flesh can be seen between each piece of the costume. He looks up. Two rabbit ears, flopping and inconspicuous, droop down over a horrific mess of rotted flesh and felt. And the smell  _ the smell _ \- rancid decomposing  _ meat _ . Micheal has to swallow and look away.

_ “My son.” _

Is the only greeting he gets before his father lunges for his throat. He can only get out a strangled- “Jeremy!” before he’s again held by the neck. Pinned against the wall, he struggles against the (almost, nearly) hands that hold him there. He scrabbles with one hand, his fingers slipping on felt, as he tries to get in a hit with the ax with the other. 

“Get  _ offa  _ him!” Jeremy squeaks, lunging. He sticks the taser into the gap where the head meets the shoulder and-

_ Bzzt _

Micheal is dropped to the ground, a sharp shock pulsing through his system where the metal of the endoskeleton was touching the already bruised skin around his neck. He clutches it, gasping, and his father slams into the wall across from them. Jeremy grabs Micheal’s hand.

  
“You need to run.”   
  
“We need to kill him.” Micheal gasps, eyes streaming in pain. 

"That isn't an option!" Jeremy says loudly, pulling Mike to his feet, dragging him.

"We just- We  _ need _ -" he shouts as he's pulled along. "Oh, SHIT!"

He tugs Jeremy closer to his side in reaction to seeing all three main bots closing in on their side. The door is ahead, the bots are on either side, and his dad is-

A hand encloses Micheal's bicep, drags him back, and his father attempts to reclaim his throat.

"Run! Get out of here!"

Jeremy only stands still, shell-shocked and terrified, surrounded. He still has time, goddamnit.

"Jeremy!" He tries again, fighting against the insistent tug of his father, “Get the fuck out of here!”

  
  
He shakes his head, once, twice. Tears prick the corner of his eyes as he takes a step toward Micheal’s tussle. He’s holding both of his Father’s hands away from his tender neck. 

Bonnie winds up to take a swipe and Mike yells “Duck!!” Before his father forces him down to his knees, nearly on top of him. 

  
  
Jeremy does, and Bonnie sweeps his arm where his head was a second ago. Jeremy hits William with the taser again, and Mike jolts with the energy, falling to the ground when his father draws back, hitting his back on one of the tables with a  _ clang _ .

  
  
“Come on, Micheal.” Jeremy whines, reaching out “We need to get out!”

Mike only trembles, trying to crawl forward, toward the outstretched hand. He lost his weapon a while ago, he can’t remember when or how. 

Jeremy grasps his wrist and starts trying to pull him, but they’re still effectively surrounded. Jeremy hits at the bot’s feet with the taser, and they move away, as if in annoyance. Mike is almost ready for his head to be smashed in by a simple step on one of their parts. In his panic he can’t understand why he isn’t already dead.

Then.

The telltale footfalls of Foxy overtake his ears, the screech already condensing in the fox’s throat. He’s going to die.  _ They’re going to die _ .

Micheal reaches, touches Jeremy’s face like he’d wanted to before. He’s so selfish, until the very end, he’s so goddamn selfish. “I’m so so sorry.”

  
  
He mutters this as the footsteps seem to be right on top of them, and to Micheal’s dismay, he feels his ankle be grabbed, he feels himself get dragged away from his friend.

But then he’s released?   


  
He sits up, confused, to see Foxy launch himself right over Micheal’s head and onto his father, tearing at the rabbit-suited dead man with his hook. His father groans, trying to throw the thing off of him. 

Bonnie’s next, grabbing one of the man’s hands, slamming him back onto the table, foxy still gripping his torso with all three non-slashing limbs. 

Each of the remaining bots step carefully around the boys, shaking on the ground. They watch in bewilderment and amazement as each of their previous enemies contributes to the beat down. 

  
“They-”

  
  
“Micheal we need to go.” Jeremy says urgently, pulling Micheal along by the sleeve of his Jacket. “Now. Come on. Now.”

They both scramble to their feet with difficulty, staggering to the door as quickly as possible.

_ “MICHEAL AFTON COME BACK HERE!” _

Mike winces, pausing. Jeremy tugs him more insistently. 

  
“ _ SELFISH LITTLE BASTARD!! SAVE ME, MICHEAL! DON’T LET THEM DO THIS TO ME-” _

Jeremy nearly pushes him out of the door, locking it behind him with much more ease than he’d unlocked it. He rips the keys out of the keyhole and ushers Micheal to his truck. 

He can still hear the muted pleads of his father. 

  
  
Micheal is numb, not even believing that he’s alive. He doesn’t question it when Jeremy piles him into the passenger seat and drives away, leaving Micheal’s car in the parking lot. He doesn’t question it when they stop in a Walmart parking lot in a spot under the trees. 

  
  
Jeremy doesn’t react when Mike starts crying, screaming, hitting the dash. Jeremy smiles sadly when Micheal swears him out, begging him to bring him back. 

Jeremy puts his jacket over Micheal’s sleeping form when he gets too worked up and passes out. 

Jeremy doesn’t sleep. His head hurts too much. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i promise im not slowly falling apart. Now that you're done reading, i apologize for this chapter it's shitty but idk i've tried to write it so many times i don't know at this point
> 
> Kudos and comment to make my day!


	11. Chapter 11: Golf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey hey i was craving v a l i d a t i o n.
> 
> And i messed with my freaking plot outline like i do all the time, which messed up everything and made writing this 20 times harder. Anyway. Thank you for being here loves!!
> 
> kudos and comment to make me smile!!

Micheal wakes up confused. He isn’t home. His head hurts, his throat hurts, his back hurts, but that’s more of an ache from sitting semi- upright while asleep than a pain. 

His eyes adjust to the sun as he shifts, a jacket falling off of his shoulders and onto his lap. Everything is dead quiet except for the roar of cars passing by periodically.

Oh.

He looks over to his left, and Jeremy is passed out, in a completely outlandish stretched out position, reminding Micheal abstractly of a cat. His lips flirt with a smile but he can’t quite get there, cracking his back and letting himself remember what happened the night before. He can’t quite grasp the details, separate what really happened from what his mind tried to make up and compensate.

  
The bots wouldn’t have _helped_ him, surely. He must have passed out and Jeremy dragged him here. 

He’s nearly numb, unfeeling. Is this shock? Apathy?  
  


He needs to go back, he needs to see. He let something out that may still be at large. And if he isn’t, then great but he really needs to know. Now.

The guilt in his chest is an overbearing weight, or a pillow being held over his face and smothering him, the perpetrator whispering that he can only breathe when he _fixes this fix this Micheal you need to fix everything-_

He looks over at Jeremy again, barely restraining himself from shaking him. Instead he turns on the radio. 

Micheal’s life is horribly ironic, unhelpfully convenient, and nearly implausible. So of course when he switches to the local news channel-

“ _-at a family eatery last night. Nothing was stolen but vandalism was rampant, none of the beloved animatronic characters were spared. Some of them have minimal damage but some of them were completely dismantled and spread around the street outside. Minimal damage was done to the restaurant itself but there appears to have been a tussle-”_ _  
_ _  
_ Jeremy snorts, stretching, and Micheal’s weird tunnel vision tunes out the radio and hones onto the man next to him instead. “A _tussle_ -”

“ _Jeremy we need to go back_ -”

Jeremy rolls his eyes, reaching out to turn the news back off “Cool your jets, tiger. I’m going to take you home and have a talk with your boyfriend-”

  
  
“Jeremy-”

  
  
“About letting you go out at night. Specifically _not_ letting you go out at night.”

  
  
“ _Jeremy_ -”

“Because- I’m really worried about you, Micheal. You’re absolutely _self-destructive and without me you would be dead right now-”_

 _  
_ _  
_ Micheal interrupts, not wanting to listen. “We need to find him, we need to stop him, you see what he’s capable of!”

  
  
“You don’t need to do anything, you don’t need to do _anything_ -”

  
  
“Yes I do, I just fucked up, _really fucking bad-_ ”

  
  
Jeremy grips his head, turning away to rest his forehead against the glass of the window. Micheal suddenly feels twenty times more guilty. 

“Oh my god, I’m sorry--- are you ok?”

  
  
“Goddamnit, Micheal.” Jeremy whines, “Don’t you get it? _You need to worry about yourself._ ”

  
  
“I don’t fucking matter.” Micheal mutters, picking ruthlessly at his cuticles, “Not until I-”

  
  
“Yes you do-”

  
  
“I’m _homeless_ now, I- I’ve lost my job, they’ll figure out eventually that it was me who broke in they have cameras-”

  
  
“Wait-”

  
  
“I have no one, Jeremy, no one but him.” Mike looks out the window, a deathly calm, still as a lake in his cold anger. But a sniff throws a pebble into his lake, inciting ripples of unease, and Micheal’s attention snaps back to his companion and to his terror he sees tears on his cheeks.

  
  
Jeremy’s crying. Fuck. _Fuck_. 

  
“Wait why are you crying? I’m sorry-”

  
  
“You have _me_.” He chokes out, reaching blindly, grabbing Micheal’s forearm with both hands and bringing his hand close to his chest. “You have me. Please, please. I’ve never had a friend since my accident. I don’t know what will happen to me if I’m alone again.”

Micheal is blindsided when Jeremy shifts Micheal’s hand so it’s cupping his face. “If you won’t be careful for yourself, please try to for me. You do care about me. I can tell. Let yourself be selfish for two seconds.”

  
  
Micheal wishes they weren’t in the front seat of a car. He wants to hug him. He wants to go to sleep. He doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t want to exist. 

Jeremy closes his eyes, squeezing out a few stray tears. “Say something.”

  
  
“I-” Micheal nearly chokes, holding his face gently despite feeling unworthy of it. “I. You should stay away from me.”

  
  
“I don’t _want to_.” Jeremy says. 

“You’ll get hurt.” Micheal says despite only wanting to draw him nearer, closer, forever. “That’s all that’ll happen, that’s all that ever happens.”

  
  
Jeremy sobs. It breaks whatever’s left of Micheal’s heart “Bullshit. That’s bullshit.”  
  


“You know it isn’t.” Micheal says, and in any other circumstance the words would have held a bite, but he tries to keep his words and movements soft. “You know what’s happened. You- I need to fix this and I don’t think I’ll ever-”

  
  
“I’ll help you find him, it’s clear that you feel the need to..” Jeremy says, pulling away, “but only if you promise me something.”

Micheal doesn’t answer. Promises are dangerous.

  
  
“Five months. Give it five months, and then drop it. You’re young….we’re young. This isn’t-”

  
  
“Normal?” Micheal asks, careful not to sound too bitter.

  
  
“It isn’t fucking _right_ , Micheal. It isn’t fair! We should be in college or golfing or something!”

  
  
“Golfing?” Micheal releases Jeremy in surprise.”Why golfing?”

“Fuck. Whatever. What do you have against golfing?”

  
  
“I- don’t? I just. Do you like golfing? Is golfing… a secret passion of yours?”

  
  
“Shut up, Micheal!!!” Jeremy screeches, his hands lashing out to strike Mike like twin vipers. Mike flinches slightly despite him obviously not intending to hurt him. Jeremy sobs soundlessly, reassigning his restless hands to the steering wheel, which he clutches so hard that his knuckles turn white.

“Do you want me to go?” Micheal asks quietly, “I can go in and call a cab, do you have quarters?”

“No!!!” Jeremy says loudly, not unlike a child throwing a tantrum (only twenty million times more heartbreaking), “You don’t get it. You don’t fucking--”

He hits the steering wheel, biting his bottom lip viciously. 

“No, I don’t. I’m sorry.”

  
  
“I _like you_.” Jeremy hisses. “I like you and I want you to like me. I don’t want you to go.”

  
  
“I-”

  
  
“I know you have a boyfriend, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  
  
“I broke up with him.”

  
  
“What?”

  
  
“I told you. I’m homeless, I left him. I thought I was going to die.”

  
  
Jeremy blinks, visually retaining this new information. “Oh?”

  
  
Micheal smiles grimly. “Oh.”

Jeremy blindly gropes until he finds Micheal’s fingers, holding on tight. 

Micheal wishes he could enjoy it, wishes that Jeremy was more important than chasing forgiveness, wishes that he was normal; at least a little bit.   
  
  
  
But he isn't.

They hold hands over the dash, neither daring to speak. It isn’t a promise or a condemnation, it’s an in-between. A compromise. That’s enough for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> e w d i s g u s t i n g i don't like this one( i always point this out at the end to not persuade the readers either way). I need to get them to kiss before i can launch into the interlude. 
> 
> ORIgINaLly they were gonna kiss in the restaurant but then i realized that that wouldn't work despite how romantic it would be. And then i put them in a parking lot (huh? Why the heck did i do that?) which keeps them in the car which makes kissing difficult. So i need to get them somewhere where it would make sense for them to get together which I don't know what the heck that's going to be. Jeremy doesn't have a house, Mike doesn't have a house, they can't go to the restaruaunt so i'm... trying my best. 
> 
> Sorry for the info dump but that's an insight into me writing this completely out of order and therefore running into difficulties. 
> 
> also fun fact i don't swear so writing young traumatized men is interesting. Like. I hope it doesn't sound stupid. lol.


End file.
